


Under the sheets and out of mind

by skullage



Series: i'm not done yet (falling for you) [2]
Category: Block B, Winner (Band)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Miscommunication, Multi, POV Multiple, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 19:44:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11562051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skullage/pseuds/skullage
Summary: If he were a stronger person, a better person, he would get out of their way and let them be together like they want to be, but he’s not. He loves Jiho too much, Minho too much, and he’s willing to let them ruin him.





	Under the sheets and out of mind

**Author's Note:**

> to danie and everyone else who waited patiently and encouraged me, thank you. thank you.

It’s an unspoken thing Jiho and Minho have, a push-pull of spirits, a competition of wills, this day of Jiho cornering Seungyoon in his bedroom when he knows Minho is going to come knocking on the door any minute looking for his phone. Seungyoon doesn’t _mind_ about Jiho and Minho, doesn’t take Jiho’s hand off his ass even though Minho’s in the room, but he doesn’t encourage it either. It’s always Jiho’s idea to come over at 2 am and find Seungyoon sequestered away in his studio and Minho asleep on the couch, always his idea to start necking and making noises loud enough that Minho wakes up. It’s not entirely, or at all, on accident, but if Seungyoon knows this, he doesn’t let on. He doesn’t push Jiho away when they’re making out in the living room and Minho walks in, but he also doesn’t see the look in Minho’s eyes like Jiho does, the half-lust half-jealousy all-frustration glare he shoots because he knows Jiho’s doing it just to fuck with him.

Even if Jiho doesn’t have Seungyoon’s approval, it’s not like he doesn’t have Seungyoon’s permission to pull him back onto the bed, to put his hands on Seungyoon’s freshly-showered skin, to kiss along his jawline. Seungyoon’s still a little wet, still very much naked and pliable in Jiho’s hands when Jiho grabs his hips and pulls Seungyoon into his lap.

Jiho’s getting hard already. It’s easy when Seungyoon is on top of him, when he gets off to the thought of Minho watching them, of walking in on them, when he can hear the front door open and Minho’s voice call out.

“Were you waiting for me?” Seungyoon asks. His voice sounds a little rough like he didn’t get enough sleep, a natural side effect of being in their profession. He plays with the pendant on Jiho’s necklace, the backs of his fingers touching Jiho’s chest.

“What?” Jiho says, pressing his thumbs into the divots of Seungyoon’s stomach. His body is incredible, and fits under Jiho’s hands so well.

Seungyoon huffs like he always does when Jiho isn’t listening to him, but who can blame Jiho when he’s so hard and Seungyoon looks like this? “Were you with Minho waiting for me?”

“Yeah, but then I got impatient.” Jiho feels Minho’s phone buzz in his back pocket and kisses Seungyoon to distract him in case he hears it. “I couldn’t wait. Was thinking about your lips.”

“My lips?” Seungyoon pouts, pushing them out. “These lips?”

“Yeah, those lips. I was thinking about how good they feel around my cock.”

This startles a laugh out of Seungyoon, and his whole face lights up. “You only talk like this when we’re here. You don’t say shit like this anywhere else.”

Jiho shrugs. He can hear Minho move around the apartment looking for his phone, and scrambles to hurry this along. “You love me talking like this. Just like you love my dick.”

Seungyoon laughs again, and Jiho makes a mental note to do this again just to see Seungyoon’s eyes crinkle and hear the evidence of Jiho’s effect on him. “I’m not arguing with that.”

Jiho’s pretty desperate in a lot of ways right now, so the whine that works its way out of his throat isn’t feigned. “Yoon-ah. I love it when you suck me. It makes me feel so good.”

Seungyoon smiles so fondly at him that Jiho thinks his own chest might collapse in on itself, and that would be fine. When Seungyoon wriggles back between Jiho’s legs to get into position, Jiho forgets about his stupid competition and just watches the fluid motions of Seungyoon’s body, his ribcage visible from the lack of fat on him, the way the joints of his fingers where they’re undoing Jiho’s fly turn red. When he takes Jiho into his mouth, it feels so good Jiho tilts his head back with a moan.

Seungyoon sinks down until he reaches the base of Jiho’s dick, hollowing out his cheeks to blow him the way Jiho likes, making it messy, pulling back to lap at the head and the precome leaking out.

“Baby, fuck, that feels so good.” He pushes the hair back from Seungyoon’s face to catch his eye. Seungyoon doesn’t hear the door open, and if Jiho hadn’t been facing it he wouldn’t have known either, but he glances up, forgetting until he catches Minho’s eye that this was the plan all along.

A fresh rush of arousal hits him so hard he almost comes right there at the sight of the combined look of shock and lust in Minho’s expression, and so Jiho figures that’s a thing he’s into. Whether it’s voyeurism in general or Minho in particular, he can’t say. He can’t even say when it started, when it turned from grossing Minho out to getting turned on at the thought of Minho watching them, like he is now, one foot out of the room as if he’s about to turn and leave but can’t. He glances between Jiho’s face, Seungyoon, naked with his ass in the air, and where Jiho disappears into Seungyoon’s mouth.

And Jiho, well. He just had to soak it up. He grips the crown of Seungyoon’s head to push him down, puts a hand behind his own head to get comfortable for the show they’re putting on, and grins, slow and wide. It seems to shock some sense into Minho, whose eyes narrow as he mouths “fuck you”, and Jiho, stupid pitiful Jiho, laughs.

Seungyoon pulls off him with a quizzical look and Jiho realises a second too late that he’s noticed.

“What,” Seungyoon says, and turns before Jiho can distract him with a kiss. Jiho sees Seungyoon tense up when he catches sight of Minho at the same time Minho reaches down to adjust himself.

“Yoon-ah,” Jiho says, and when Seungyoon turns to him it’s with a thunderous look.

“You’re unbelievable,” Seungyoon says. He gets up in one movement and starts pulling on clothes, and Jiho hastens to put his dick away and reach out to him. Seungyoon pulls back with a disgusted expression. “Don’t. Whatever games you’re playing with each other don’t and shouldn’t include me. This,” he says, gesturing between himself and Jiho, “isn’t entertainment.” He stalks out of the room, pushing past Minho as he goes, and leaving silence in his wake.

Whatever good feelings Jiho had a minute ago are quashed by Seungyoon’s admittedly justified anger, as are Minho’s judging by the look on his face. Jiho gets to the door in time to see the front door slam.

“You have my phone,” Minho says.

Jiho turns to him, not registering what he said. “Oh.” He fishes it out of his pocket and hands it over. Minho takes it, looking angry.

“Why’d you have to do that? He probably hates me now. Fuck, hyung. He’s my best friend.” Minho looks like he’s about to say something else before he stops himself. “This is going to be bad, and I’m blaming you for everything.”

He turns to leave too, and Jiho doesn’t have anything to say in defence. 

—

The four days Minho spends texting Seungyoon apologies and leaving pathetic voicemails on his phone and fending off Jiho’s attempts to talk to him are the worst he’s had in awhile. He knocks on Seungyoon’s door every time he leaves to go to, or gets back from, the studio, but gets no answer any time he tries. It’s just starting to sink in for him that this is his reality now, one in which he and Seungyoon aren’t inseparable, one in which he and Seungyoon aren’t even talking because of something _Jiho_ did, when someone knocks on their door.

He’s not _surprised_ to see Jiho, exactly, but he’s not welcoming to him either. Jiho looks a mess: he hasn’t washed his hair in days, bags underline his eyes, and his nails are bitten down to the quick. He looks shocked that Minho opened the door, like maybe he was preparing himself for Seungyoon instead, or no one at all. Maybe he expected to be waiting for the rest of the day for someone to tell him to fuck off. Minho opens his mouth to do just that when Jiho interrupts him.

“I fucked up,” he says.

Minho waits for more, but that seems to be the extent of what Jiho had prepared. “And? I know that.”

“I can explain what was going on, but I just need to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, or Seungyoon, especially not Seungyoon.” He scrubs a hand through his greasy hair. Minho takes in what he’s wearing—dirty jeans and a t-shirt he looks like he’s been sleeping in. It’s not exactly apology material.

Minho crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, you did. He’s really upset. I don’t even know if he’s come out of his room in days.”

Jiho looks even more upset at that. “And you?”

“I,” Minho says, a little taken aback at the question. “I don’t even understand why you did it.”

Jiho looks at him as if something breaks inside him at Minho’s words. “Minho,” he says softly, “you have to _know_.” He reaches out to tug at the hem of Minho’s sweatshirt, not pulling him in, just—

Minho doesn’t know. Jiho looks so vulnerable, so raw, the defences he keeps up in order to deal with the rest of the world stripped off him, that Minho can’t stay mad. As Jiho steps forward Minho feels the familiar ache in his chest that he gets every time he walks in on Jiho and Seungyoon, every time he hears them having sex at night, every time he sees them kiss. Jiho tightens his grip on Minho’s sweatshirt and he’s inches away now, and Minho’s just about to lean forward when someone pushes past him with an, “Excuse me.”

Jiho spins around but Seungyoon’s already halfway down the hall and doesn’t respond, doesn’t even flinch, at the two of them calling his name. Minho has to hold Jiho back from going after him, knowing that it’s a lost cause right now, knowing how this must look to Seungyoon. They’re lucky all they got was an “excuse me”.

Jiho deflates as Seungyoon ditches the elevator and goes for the stairs, and Minho sighs. “Drinks?” he asks, and Jiho, looking lost, nods.

—

“I still remember the day you met,” Minho says. It sounds more maudlin than he intended, as if it’s a death sentence and not a simple reminiscing, but he guesses in some ways it was. They’re at Minho’s favorite spot, the place he met with Bobby during _Show Me The Money_. It’s where he goes to think and eat and drink and get his head in order.

“Yeah,” Jiho says, “M Countdown. You wouldn’t introduce us for ages, and I figured it was because you didn’t want me to make a move on him.”

Minho tries not to let Jiho know how right he is. “You moved fast, though. It didn’t take you long to ask him out.”

“I really liked him, his look, his persona,” Jiho says, mostly into his glass. “I still do. When I met him it was like something in me changed, I felt new again. Fuck, I can’t believe I fucked this up so badly.”

Minho snorts. “It was a pretty spectacular fuck up.” He pours himself another, chewing on the words he needs Jiho to know, trying to phrase them the best way he can. “If you’d just asked, I’m sure he would’ve been okay with it.”

“Okay with…?”

“With whatever the fuck you were doing. When you were always—” He stops, searches for the words. “Trying to include me.”

“Oh.” Jiho ducks his head. “I didn’t think it through that far. I didn’t—think. Now he’s hurt and I don’t know… I don’t know if this can be fixed, if he’s ever going to forgive me.”

They lapse into silence for a minute and Minho tries to hold back, but the longer the silence stretches the harder it is to keep in until it comes tumbling out of his mouth anyway, a quiet, “I should have never let you meet him,” that makes Jiho’s face fall, that makes him look as hurt as he deserves to be for hurting Seungyoon.

“Help me fix this,” Jiho says, pleading, reaching out across the table for Minho’s hand. Minho almost flinches back, but the urge to make Jiho happy, to make Jiho proud of him, and how sorry he knows Jiho is, wins out over his other feelings. “I have to promo soon, in a couple days, and Seungyoon probably won’t want to talk to me until promotions are over, so if he comes out of his bedroom and wants to talk, you have to try.”

Minho nods, still unsure of how to fix a situation this ruined. “If it gets worse, you only have yourself to blame. You only have yourself to blame anyway, because this is all you, but. I’ll try.”

Jiho breathes a sigh of relief. “You’re a good friend, Minho.” He tangles their fingers together. It’s so easy to get caught up in Jiho’s charm; it’s as if he’s the sun and everyone else is just orbiting him.

“Yeah, yeah.” Minho takes another shot and winces before he catches Jiho’s eye. “You are sorry, right?”

“What? Of course.”

“Because it seems like you were just using him to get to me, to—make me jealous.”

“I mean,” Jiho starts, and Minho stands up to smack him. “Ow, okay, just listen. There was a bit of that, over the past few weeks, but—it didn’t start out that way. My feelings for Seungyoon haven’t changed. I still love him. I don’t care if you believe me.”

“You should care,” Minho says, sitting back down precariously, ready to smack him again when he inevitably says some other dumbass thing. “If the people closest to you can’t tell how much you care about him, then that’s worrying.”

“His opinion about our relationship is the only one I care about.” He looks so sincere, so steadfast when he says it that Minho believes him. It doesn’t mean that Jiho’s doing the right thing, or that he even knows what he’s doing, but it’s enough for now.

—

Seungyoon’s already in the desk chair and writing lyrics into a document for ten minutes before he realises it’s Minho’s studio, not his own, and by that time his anger has deflated a little and he’s too tired to get up. He’s been tired for days, worn down after the shooting for Half Moon Friends wrapped up, tired from thinking about Jiho and Minho, tired of running over in his mind all the reasons why Jiho would do what he did. The most obvious one seems to be that Jiho was just using Seungyoon because he couldn’t have Minho. It hurts to think about it, but Seungyoon can’t stop, it plays in a loop in his head, Jiho and Minho together that both turns him on and makes him disgusted with himself, makes him feel pathetic that those two years he spent with Jiho all amounted to this: Seungyoon nothing more than an impediment to Jiho admitting his attraction for Minho. Why Jiho couldn’t just tell him, why he thought he had to keep it a secret, Seungyoon doesn’t know. It makes him hate Jiho in a way he never thought he could, that Jiho lied, that he kept secrets.

Seungyoon looks around the room, not for anything in particular, thinking about all the time he’s spent here and why his legs took him to Minho’s space when he’s so angry at him. He picks up Minho’s notebook from the desk, even though he knows he shouldn’t, knows how precious Minho’s handwritten notes are to him. He flicks to the latest piece and reads what’s written there, phrasing jumping out at him like, “want to get with you but you’re with him”, “I never stood a chance when you didn’t have your eyes on me”, and, in English, “get you on your knees / becus youre so easy to please”. Seungyoon snaps the book shut and throws it back down on the desk, his anger flaring up again.

If Minho could be more obvious, Seungyoon doesn’t know how. He should get out of their way, but that involves having a conversation that he doesn’t want to have. He’s angry at Jiho, but that doesn’t mean he wants to end the relationship like he should. It doesn’t mean he wants to let Jiho throw the last two years away. But if he wants to be with Minho as much as Minho wants to be with him, Seungyoon isn’t going to stop them. He’s already imagining how he’s going to get through the rest of his time as a member of Winner without having a breakdown or going on extended hiatus, and everything else is too much, like how he can go back to being friends with Minho or Jiho, if he even wants to.

Eventually he gets up and goes back to his studio where he continues to write in his notebook, something resembling a song he’ll never produce, on pages that he has to rip to shreds to make sure no one will ever read, and then he’s so tired he passes out on the couch, forgetting, in the heat of his dreams, everything about the past few days.

—

The next week passes in a blur of activities and appearances and promoting “Toy” and Jiho’s too busy being Zico of Block B to try to talk to Seungyoon, who he’s sure still doesn’t want to talk to him anyway, and he forgets, somehow, that he’s also Jiho. He has fun, he enjoys their comeback and performing and being with the fans, but as soon as he’s out of the spotlight, as soon as he picks up his phone to find a new message from Minho or no messages at all, he remembers what a fuck up he made.

No one else seems to notice his lack of concentration during the rehearsal for Show Champion, and he thinks he’s gotten away with being so scattered until Kyung pulls him aside in the waiting room and sits him down.

“Spill,” he says, but Jiho waves him off.

“Not right now.”

Kyung tugs at his arm. “Jiho, talk to me.” The others are busy getting ready and don’t pay them any attention.

“I’m not getting into it here,” he says, trying to sound placating and give the impression that he will talk about it later, if only to get Kyung to leave him alone. “Something’s happened with Seungyoon. It’s nothing, he’s fine,” he says, preempting Kyung’s question, “but he’s mad at me and I haven’t had the chance to talk to him.”

“What did you do,” Kyung says in a suspicious tone. It’s not quite a question.

“Later,” Jiho says, as his phone buzzes with a message. His heart rate speeds up until he reads Hyuk’s name on the screen and he throws his phone down on the couch next to him.

Later never comes, because he manages to evade and distract Kyung enough throughout their promotions that he never has to explain this game he and Minho are playing and how it’s affected Seungyoon. He barely has time to think about it himself let alone rehash it with someone else, and for that he’s grateful.

—

Seungyoon doesn’t mean to, but once the thought hits him he can’t get it out of his head. It gnaws at him, whether Minho and Jiho have already gotten together, whether they’ve fucked, or worse, been intimate, if they’ve held hands during sex, if they’ve shared the kinds of personal things that only Seungyoon and Jiho have shared, and, if they have, when it started.

He ends up watching the entirety of _Show Me The Money 4_ , paying close attention to see if they let anything show. He knows how hard it was on Minho, how he lost weight and his hair started falling out from the stress, how he would cry sometimes after he got home from filming, how he said it was like the whole world had their teeth in his throat. It would have been impossible to get through that without some form of comfort, and for a while Seungyoon, naively, selfishly, fancied himself part of that comfort. Looking at the footage now, he knows that’s not true, because Minho had Jiho.

They’re fond of each other, they touch each other more than is necessary, more physical with each other than any of the other rappers are with anyone else, and maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the evidence. Minho lays his head in Jiho’s lap, and Jiho plays with his ear and croons. Seungyoon feels a stab in his chest, a physical ache, that hurts almost as bad as everything else. Jiho takes Minho’s wrist to look at his bracelet and Seungyoon’s mind flashes back to a week ago and the necklace Jiho was wearing then—the one with the red stone that he wears sometimes, that’s been around since the year before.

He goes back through his memory, playing back every interaction Minho and Jiho have had in front of him, as if that will give him the answer. The one that stands out most prominently is the week before in Japan, standing on stage with the both of them and Jiho disregarding him to move to Minho. If Jiho wanted to get back in Seungyoon’s good graces he was doing a pretty fucking awful job of it. If he wanted only Minho’s attention, then he was going about it the right way.

As expected, it doesn’t give him an answer. He shuts his laptop and covers himself in his duvet and blocks out the world for a while. If Minho and Jiho haven’t gotten together, they want to, and that’s just as bad.

—

Minho doesn’t know what to do. Jiho’s imperative hadn’t included any specificities regarding what exactly he should do to make this situation better. He doesn’t feel like explaining the situation will be in any way productive as even he doesn’t know the whole of it. He doesn’t know where Jiho is coming from, what his thought process was in including Minho in what should’ve been something private between him and Seungyoon.

It’s not that Minho hasn’t thought about it. It’s not as if Minho hasn’t spend countless nights touching himself to the sounds of Seungyoon and Jiho fucking in the next room, hasn’t felt ashamed of himself for wanting to cover Jiho’s teeth marks on Seungyoon’s skin with his own, wanting to join them. But then again, it’s not as if Jiho hadn’t admitted he likes Minho, too, that he _wants_ Minho in a way friends shouldn’t want their friends. And that’s the most fucked up thing of all.

He doesn’t know what to do about that either, so he does what he can. Except that what he does only seems to make it worse. Seungyoon bashes on his door until Minho opens it, frantically backtracking in his mind to what he could have done in the last few days to warrant this.

“Yes?” Minho asks, cowed by the fury in Seungyoon’s eyes.

“Did you eat in my studio?”

“No? Why would I eat in your studio? I have my own.”

“Then why was there food in there?”

“Oh,” Minho says, hit with embarrassment. “I left you some food.” Two days before. “As a sorry.”

Seungyoon’s nostrils flare. “I don’t need food,” he says, “what I need is my studio not to be covered in ants and cockroaches.”

Minho is hit with feelings of shame and guilt. “Shit, okay, I’ll clean it up right now.”

“Don’t bother, the cleaning staff already dealt with it.” Seungyoon takes a step back, calming himself with deep breaths. Minho feels very small and foolish, but, at the same time, hopeful that Seungyoon is talking to him again. This is more acknowledgement than Mino’s had in a week and a half. Their Busan Tour is in three days and they’re nowhere close to patching things up. If that fans realise something is wrong, it’s going to be bad for all of them.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Seungyoon gives him a look like he doesn’t care. He opens his mouth to say something, then seems to think better of it and turns away. Minho watches him disappear down the hall with a sinking stomach and his sense of guilt growing.

—

Their Exit Tour in Busan goes so well that, while it’s happening, Minho almost fools himself into thinking everything is okay. The anticipation of performing gets him through the awkwardness of sitting next to Seungyoon on the plane ride there, bumping elbows and apologizing under their breath, but then it’s over and they’re on stage again.

He’d almost forgotten the rush that performing gives him, the five of them onstage, moving as a fluid unit, listening to the crowd sing along with them. Seungyoon’s reactions to him backstage are icy but as soon as they’re onstage it’s as if nothing is wrong. He laughs when Mino plays around with him, laughs harder when Jinwoo pretends to kiss Minho. Normalcy. It’s not until the concert is over and they’re back on the plane that Seungyoon makes it clear nothing has changed, he’s still mad. He ignores Minho’s attempts to talk to him, and shuts himself in his room as soon as they’re back at the dorm.

Minho’s phone buzzes with a text as he watches Seungyoon shut the door behind him.

Jihohyung 11.21:  
_Have you talked to him yet?_

Mino 11.22:  
_He’s not talking to me._

Mino 11.22:  
_Hurry up and get back so we can fix this._

Minho doesn’t want to give up so easily, but short of breaking down Seungyoon’s door—and saying, what, exactly? What can he say?—there’s no way to get Seungyoon to talk to him. He crashes on the couch to watch whatever random anime is on, hoping Seungyoon will eventually resurface before he falls asleep on Seunghoon’s shoulder.

—

Jiho gets the text about some other disaster Minho’s caused—something to do with a fish bowl and a shorted-out power board—as he’s driving towards the YG dorms. It’s second nature to him by now to wave to the guard at the gate, take the elevator, and punch in the code to the Winner dorm. Minho’s waiting for him, looking lost, and Jiho pulls him into the living area, thankful that no one else is around.

“Hyung?” Minho asks. “Have you got a plan?”

Jiho, still pumped up on the high of promotions, breaks into a smile. “I have a plan.”

Minho sighs. “Good. We have to fix this.”

“We will,” Jiho reassures him. “Is he home?”

“No,” Minho says.

“Good,” Jiho says. He takes Minho’s hand and leads him to Seungyoon’s bedroom. “Good, we’ll figure this out first.”

He sits on Seungyoon’s bed and tugs Minho down next to him, and then they wait.

—

What he expected to walk home to was not Jiho and Minho waiting for him on his bed, whispering to themselves and holding hands, but if he said he didn’t imagine something like a confession of their feelings for each other and how Jiho never loved Seungyoon as much as he loves Minho, he’d be as big a liar as Jiho.

“Oh,” Seungyoon says, dropping his bag at his feet, at a loss for anything else to say.

Their heads snap up almost comically at the same time, and Seungyoon feels like laughing at the sight.

“Yoon-ah,” Jiho says, and it hits Seungyoon like a block of ice, cold and hard and unforgiving. “Don’t leave, ok? Just—stay with us.”

Seungyoon does what he’s told, mouth closed, feet planted. Jiho stands and, of all things, takes off his jacket. He drops it on the floor like it didn’t cost three thousand American dollars and moves over to where Seungyoon’s still standing. Seungyoon doesn’t do anything when Jiho kisses him this time but let himself be kissed, and Jiho must feel how tense he is, because he pulls back, his brow furrowed.

“I’m sorry,” Jiho says, pulling his shirt over his head and dropping that too. He looks good. Up close he has the barest hint of stubble and he looks like he’s slept for once. Seungyoon doesn’t know what he’s hoping to achieve with a sorry, if he thinks Seungyoon can forgive him with two words. Minho’s watching them from the bed, and when Jiho looks over at him he shucks off his own jacket.

Oh. So that’s what he wants.

Jiho’s lips find the shell of Seungyoon’s ear as he reaches back for Minho. “Let me make it up to you.”

Minho stands, beckoned by Jiho’s hand, and comes forward. Jiho grabs his hand and pulls him until he’s standing in front of Seungyoon. Everything seems to move in slow motion—Zico’s thumb dragging across the back of Minho’s hand—Minho baring his chest as he lifts his shirt over his head and tosses it—the tick of Seungyoon’s watch, the loudest sound in the room.

“This is what you want, right?” Jiho asks, and Seungyoon almost answers before Minho clears his throat.

“Yeah,” Minho says, softly, eyes searching Seungyoon’s face. He glances over at Jiho, and Seungyoon watches them exchange a look as Minho continues, “for a while now,” and Seungyoon was really starting to think that he couldn’t possibly feel worse. But this, Minho and Jiho admitting they want each other, in front of him, makes the last few weeks seem like they were easy.

It happens slowly but Seungyoon, still feeling as though he’s outside of his own body, is surprised when Minho leans forward to kiss him. His knee-jerk reaction is to kiss back, to close his eyes and put his lips to use, and the kiss drags on for several seconds before Seungyoon even realises what he’s doing. By the time he’s pulled back Jiho’s come up behind Minho, his hands on Minho’s bare waist, kissing his neck.

Seungyoon can’t deny he’s attracted to Minho, that he’s thought about this, that, even though they’re only using him now as a way to express their feelings for each other, he wants it. And that is what they’re doing—that has to be it. If Jiho really cared about Seungyoon, he would know that sex wouldn’t fix what was wrong between them, that his attraction to Minho wouldn’t solve the problem when that was the cause of it.

As Jiho reaches around to pop the button on Minho’s jeans and slide a hand in, Seungyoon feels the phantom touch of every time Jiho’s done that to him, has seen the expression on Minho’s face at the way Jiho wraps a hand around him in the mirror when Jiho’s come up behind him, remarking on how Minho always says Seungyoon checks himself out too much. When Jiho pushes Minho’s pants down and Minho steps out of them, Seungyoon does the same to his own, freeing their cocks at the same time.

“Look,” Jiho says, and Minho’s eyes snap open to land on Seungyoon, who suddenly feels very foolish and very bare, despite being the most clothed person in the room. “He looks good,” Jiho says, like Seungyoon can’t hear him, like Seungyoon isn’t even there. “He doesn’t need that shirt.”

Minho takes the initiative and lifts Seungyoon’s shirt up, tossing it aside like his own.

Jiho continues, “You should touch him,” and Minho reaches out, touches Seungyoon’s shoulders first, his collarbones, runs his hands down Seungyoon’s chest, and even though he knows it’s only for Jiho’s benefit, Minho’s hands feel good. Minho’s are only the second pair of hands he’s had on his body, not counting the endless list of noonas and managers that own his body just by virtue of being paid to look after him, but this. This feels nice. He has a different touch to Jiho, softer, less sure of himself, which Seungyoon puts down to his apprehension about being told to touch him and not Jiho. Seungyoon, if he didn’t care so much for both of them, would know the feeling.

He doesn’t want to look at Jiho and see the lust in his eyes, so he focuses on Minho instead, the ink marring his skin, the softness of his lips, the way his nostrils flare. This time when Minho kisses him, it’s less of a surprise. Seungyoon lets himself melt into it, tasting breath mints not-quite-completely covering the tang of energy drinks and tobacco, a combination he now instinctively associates with Minho. He pulls away too quickly, casts his eyes downwards, lets a hand that turns out to be Jiho’s lift his chin.

“I think we should move to the bed,” Jiho says. He seems so in control of the situation that Seungyoon, who is lost, who is numb to the feelings but not the sensations, nods. He could say no. He could tell Jiho to go fuck himself, and he should, to leave Seungyoon out of whatever games they’re playing with each other, but he’s stopped by the little voice inside his head that says that if he walks out now, neither of them will speak to him again. That this chance will never be repeated. That if they don’t have this, they won’t need him at all. So he kicks off his pants and pushes Minho down onto the bed, sitting in his lap, already feeling the temperature of the room from having three of them in it. He can feel Jiho’s eyes on him and the determination to put on a good show hits him at the same time Minho’s hand curls around Seungyoon’s cock. He strokes a few times before Seungyoon winces and Minho curses, apologizes, takes off his rings to put them on the bedside table. 

“Is that good?” Minho asks, starting to stroke Seungyoon to hardness.

“A little slower,” Jiho says, “a firm grip.” Seungyoon doesn’t add anything; Jiho has this under control, apparently. He lies down next to them, his body weight resting on his elbow as he watches. Seungyoon focuses back on Minho, touching his chest, placing a hand over his chest piece, feeling how smooth and firm he is.

“Are you good?” Jiho asks, putting his hand on Seungyoon’s thigh.

Seungyoon resists the urge to shrug. It’s a loaded question. “Get the lube,” he says, and a smile spreads across Jiho’s face. He does as he’s told, gets the mostly-empty bottle out of Seungyoon’s top draw, kissing Seungyoon’s shoulder as he passes it over. Minho’s still half dressed, but his cock is out and rubbing against Seungyoon, which is all that matters. Seungyoon reaches between them with a palmful of lube to slick him up, before Jiho’s hand stills him.

“We should prep you first,” he says, a slight crease between his eyebrows.

“I can take it,” Seungyoon says, even though he can feel Minho, can see him, and he knows he’s just lying.

“You’re not used to Minho,” Jiho says.

“Yeah, your pain endurance is,” Minho says, and Seungyoon rolls his eyes. “Here.” Minho grabs Seungyoon around the waist and rolls him over until he’s on his back and Minho’s on top of him, Minho’s weight pressing him down. The movement wakes Seungyoon up. His heartbeat speeds up and everything starts to move at a normal pace, not the glacial reckoning of before, and Seungyoon doesn’t have to wait long for Minho to maneuver him where he wants, knees pushed up to his chest, working a slicked-up finger through the tight ring of muscle.

It hits Seungyoon then that this thing he used to imagine during all those late nights in the studio when it was just him, Minho, and a soundboard, long before he met Jiho, long before he learned to suppress his feelings for Minho, is finally happening. Minho pushes another of his long fingers into him, and it’s almost too much, Minho on top of him and inside him at the same time, Jiho watching them with a heavy-lidded gaze. They exchange a glance, and that’s enough to remind Seungyoon what his place is in all of this. Jiho leans up and kisses Minho in front of Seungyoon, and Seungyoon closes his eyes, focuses instead on the way Minho twists his fingers, the anticipation of him doing more.

He gets impatient after a few more minutes of listening to them make out and pushes Minho’s arm. “I’m ready,” he says, but Minho and Jiho are still kissing and take another minute to break away.

“Are you sure?” Minho asks. He looks concerned, because that’s who he is. Even if Jiho is the person he really wants to be with, he’s not going to hurt Seungyoon on purpose.

In that moment, Seungyoon makes a decision. He lets his gaze grow soft, and a smile spread across his lips as he looks up at Minho. “Yeah,” he says, quietly, “I’m sure.”

Minho glances back at Jiho. “We good?”

“All yours, man.” Jiho looks at Minho so fondly Seungyoon feels like his heart might physically break. He used to look at Seungyoon that way. When Minho pushes in, the stretch is just shy of too painful and Seungyoon feels his erection wilt. He’s glad they insisted on prepping him, but the excruciating minute it takes for Minho to bottom out is worth it when he hits that spot inside Seungyoon that makes his whole body light up. He doesn’t realise until he opens his eyes that his head is tipped back and his mouth is open on a moan that cuts through the air.

“Fuck,” Seungyoon says, “fuck, right there, that’s good.”

“Yeah?” Minho asks, sounding proud of himself, and Seungyoon thinks, as he starts to roll his hips and fuck into him, he should be. He’s got a great cock and he knows how to use it, dicking into him hard enough that Seungyoon feels it throughout his whole body. He starts a relentless rhythm that has Seungyoon panting and whining within minutes.

It’s like nothing Seungyoon has ever felt. Minho fills him so completely Seungyoon has nowhere to go, full of him, surrounded by him. Jiho always fucks him so good but this is on another level, Minho’s dick so big he’s hitting Seungyoon’s prostate easily, again and again, and his dick perks up again, getting harder the more Minho fucks him.

“Does it feel good?”

Seungyoon nods, squeezing his eyes shut again and pushing his fingernails into Minho’s chest as his orgasm looms.

“How’s it look?” Minho asks. Seungyoon sneaks a glance at Jiho, who’s still half dressed and has his dick in his hand, stroking himself lazily.

“I’m not complaining,” Jiho says. He catches Seungyoon’s eye and leans over to kiss him. It only lasts a few seconds before Jiho breaks off to grab Minho by the back of his neck to kiss him too, rougher than how he was kissing Seungyoon, hungrier, and Minho moans into it. He keeps fucking Seungyoon through it, hands bruising his hips, hitting that spot inside him over and over, getting a hand around his cock to wring his orgasm out of him. Seungyoon comes across Minho’s hands, his own stomach and chest, his chin, covering himself.

Minho stops fucking him long enough for Seungyoon to catch his breath, and Jiho drags his finger through the mess they made of Seungyoon’s stomach, lifting it to his mouth while they both watch him lick it clean.

“Fuck,” Minho says, low and rough, “that’s hot.”

A smile breaks out across Jiho’s face. “My turn,” he says, getting on his knees and into place behind Minho, reaching a hand between him and Seungyoon to pull Minho out of him. “He gets over sensitive,” Jiho explains, again as if Seungyoon isn’t there, and Seungyoon’s had enough. He rolls to the side of the bed, onto his side and away from them, closest to the door in case the sound of them fucking gets too much for him to take.

—

Jiho’s the first to wake at some unholy hour of the morning and he jostles Minho awake while untangling himself from the mess of their limbs. The bed is too small for the three of them and Jiho was sleeping pretty much on top of him the whole night.

“Do you have to go?” Minho asks, his voice rough from sleep. He feels a rush of affection looking up at Jiho, who has gunk in his eyes and whose hair is all over the place, that a day ago he would have repressed, but. Today he gets to feel it. He wants to tell somebody. He wants to write a song, and not the melancholic ramblings of “Body” that he wrote about his unrequited feelings for Seungyoon, but something sweet and hot, something that spells out both how he feels for and what he wants to do to Jiho now that he’s got the opportunity. It’s a nice feeling.

“Yeah,” Jiho says, trying to flatten the bird’s nest of his hair. He’s still got his pants on and his dick out, and Minho eyes his morning wood with interest.

“You can’t stay for a quickie?”

Jiho laughs a little, stretching as his stands to his full height. When he leans down to kiss Seungyoon’s cheek, it feels like a private moment Minho is intruding on.

“Wish I could,” Jiho says.

“How about a shower?”

“I can’t guarantee you won’t join me, and then we might as well have a quickie.”

“Yeah,” Minho says, a smile creeping across his face, “that’s the point.”

Jiho throws Minho’s pants at him. “Walk me to the door.”

Minho complies, pulling his pants on, popping his joints as he stretches too. He takes a look at Seungyoon, curled on his side, his skin mottled red and purple where Minho’s hands touched him. He got so carried away he forgot how easily Seungyoon bruises, and he’s thankful they don’t have any schedules today.

Jiho stops at the front door, spinning around to face Minho. “So,” he says, trying not to smile. “Last night was pretty incredible.”

“Uh huh,” Minho says, biting his lip. It’s a real shame Jiho doesn’t have time this morning to recreate it. “I think Seungyoonie enjoyed himself, too.”

“Well, that was the plan.” Jiho hooks his finger in Minho belt loop, not tugging, just holding on. “I might have some time later this week, so I’ll check in. Just, make sure he’s okay, yeah? Keep an eye on him.”

“Of course,” Minho says. He’s spent so long telling time by Seungyoon’s clock that the seconds tick to the sound of his name.

“Thanks.” Jiho doesn’t move for a minute. His fingers brush against Minho’s stomach and Minho is hit with the memory of all the places Jiho touched last night, feels them like Jiho’s branded him. He wants it again with a sudden intensity that makes him reach out and pull Jiho in by the back of the neck, a mirror of last night, and kiss him. Jiho responds easily, kissing back just as fervently, stepping forward until their bodies are flush. “Mm,” Jiho says, sighing a little, “I could do this all day but I really have—”

They’re interrupted from a noise behind them and Minho spins around to see Taehyun frozen, a look of surprise on his face.

“Oh,” Taehyun says. “This is a new development.”

“It’s not like that,” Jiho says, trying to be as placating as possible. Minho and Jiho look past Taehyun to see Seungyoon come out of the bedroom. Taehyun, who is used to minding his own business, doesn’t know what to do with this information that he didn’t ask for.

He gives Jiho a thumbs up. “Okey dokey yo.”

“No really, it’s—Seungyoon, can you tell him?”

Jiho looks at Seungyoon, and Seungyoon, who has just woken up and is too tired from the night before to do much more than shrug, says nothing. Let Taehyun think what he wants to think.

“Okay,” Jiho says, taking a step backwards towards the door. “I’ll see you both later.”

Taehyun looks at Seungyoon with an expression like he’s not sure whether he should be worried, and Seungyoon just shrugs again. He’s only wearing underwear, and he knows what he must look like, but he’s not sure if he cares, which probably means he doesn’t. After watching Jiho go, Minho turns to look at him, but Seungyoon leaves the room before he makes it the full 180 degrees. He doesn’t need to look at the in-love expression on Minho’s face knowing it’s not directed at him.

The shower he takes is the best he’s had in awhile. His body is sore and bruised from where Minho held him too hard and he takes time to wash Minho from his skin, half-wishing the other evidence would wash down the drain with his body soap. Every time he fucks someone new, he wears it on his body. It took Jiho a few times to learn how not to bruise him, to hold him carefully and to fuck slowly so he’s not so sore afterwards. It’s a learning process Minho probably isn’t interested in going through.

Minho himself is outside bathroom while Seungyoon showers, chewing on a hangnail, unsure if he should go in, too, if he’s allowed now that Jiho isn’t here. Maybe it was a one-off thing, something Seungyoon and Jiho can check off their list, a step to repairing their relationship. He snaps himself out of that way of thinking, because it’s not fair to them, and he cares too much about Jiho and Seungyoon to think that badly of them.

So he leaves it, and lets Seungyoon shower in peace.

—

Jiho’s away for most of the next week, but Minho’s there, even if he keeps his distance. He comes to sit next to Seungyoon on the couch while he’s working on something, rearranging the chords of “Baby Baby” until he gets something new.

“Sounds good,” Minho says. They haven’t spoken about the other night. Seungyoon doesn’t really want to revisit the place he was in, so it’s easier now to just smile and keep playing. Minho watches him for a few minutes before he joins in, singing softly, freestyling with ease.

They always jam like this: them, Seungyoon’s guitar or soundboard, and whatever lyrics come to mind. It’s something that’s happened so naturally for them, ever since they were trainees and they felt the weight of being part of the YG family. Sometimes it results in songs they can use, like the ones they wrote together for _2014 S/S_.

One song comes to mind as Seungyoon’s playing, and his muscle memory takes over, strumming the chords, humming the tune. Writing that song was the first time he’d put so much of himself into lyrics, the first time he felt he was really expressing the person he was, and that person was a nineteen year old closet case in love with his best friend. Seungyoon came up with the chords and the tune, while Minho rapped over the top, and then Seungyoon pitched in, the whole time thinking about his ex-girlfriend and how he couldn’t be the person she wanted him to be. His voice grew stronger the more lyrics they came up with, and Minho didn’t seem as afraid as Seungyoon felt, throwing out “from the day we first met, I wore a mask over my face” so easily Seungyoon never would have guessed Minho’s own struggles with how the world perceived him. He didn’t even suspect until that song, but when they finished, Minho glanced over at Seungyoon and said, “You too, then?”

Seungyoon laughed and motioned to his body, mostly covered by the guitar. “I didn’t make it obvious?”

Minho shrugged. “You can never really tell. I still like girls,” he said, as if he needed to explain himself. It rang out loudly in the quiet of the studio, and shut his mouth as if he’d said too much.

“I’ve seen you check girls out,” Seungyoon said, “I _know_ you like girls.”

Minho’s face turned red. “Have you seen me check anyone else out?”

“No, and no one else has either, don’t worry. You’re okay.”

Minho scratched the back of his neck as if he was embarrassed. “It’s not like I keep it a secret. I used to have boyfriends, I guess you’d call them.”

“Before you joined YG?”

“Yeah. It happens in the underground scene a lot more often than you’d think. Guys need to blow off some steam after a performance, or we’d just get close, you know? We had to look out for each other. We’d write lyrics together, spend time at each other’s houses, meet each other’s parents. Jiho would introduce me to some guys, sometimes our age, sometimes older. It’s not,” he said, looking flustered, “it’s not how it sounds, he just. He knew I would get, you know, lonely. He was looking out for me.”

Seungyoon meant to ask if Minho and Jiho had ever gotten together, but the moment passed and it seemed crude. His voice went unintentionally soft and low when he asked, “Do you still get lonely?” He didn’t mean to expose himself with the question, but Minho’s gaze grew soft.

“Sometimes.”

Seungyoon glanced down at his own hands, then up again when he felt braver. “Me, too.”

Something flashed through Minho’s expression and Seungyoon thought, maybe this was it, his chance to say something. _I’m in l—I like you. I feel things for you I’ve never felt for anyone, that’s how I know who I am._ But then Minho screwed up his face and exclaimed, “You’re cute,” and that was it, chance ruined.

Seungyoon laughed and started strumming again. “Yeah, you’re stuck with me.” Finishing the song was easier when they had a clear purpose, not just skirting around what they felt but exclaiming it. They were _different_ , and now.

Now Seungyoon keeps his eyes on the fretboard, trying not to run through the list of reasons in his head why Minho would bother with him. Jiho made his feelings clear last night, and it’s obvious to Seungyoon who he prefers. Maybe it’s not as clear to Minho, because he doesn’t know Jiho as well as Seungyoon does. The Jiho who is still in love with Seungyoon would have explained himself instead of keeping his distance for months, instead of thinking sex could fix what was wrong in their relationship, instead of only initiating sex when Minho was in the room. Seungyoon sees him now. When he glances up at Minho, he feels what Jiho must feel, a sense of longing, of wanting, of being awed by him. It’s no wonder to Seungyoon why Jiho is in love with him, because Seungyoon is in love with him, too.

Which means it hurts that much more when Minho gets up and leaves without a word.

—

Minho’s doing a fucking awful job of the only thing Jiho asked him to do. There’s so much he wants to say to Seungyoon, but none of it comes out, not when Seungyoon looks at him placidly like he’s not even seeing Minho. He loves Seungyoon, that much he’s sure of, has loved him since they met three years before, has loved him before and during the time he’s been together with Jiho, and will love him long after, if it ever comes to that.

He can’t say it, so he writes it down. He flips through his notebook to find the last thing he wrote—a half-assed rap about how he wanted to get Seungyoon on his knees, and he feels sick thinking about it now. He scratches it out in pen and starts on a new page. As the words come out of him, easier than turning on a tap, he can’t help think of Jiho, Jiho’s hands on Minho’s body, Jiho’s cock pushing into him, opening him up, fucking into him, while Seungyoon slept beside them. He can still feel the sensations of Jiho’s teeth in the back of his neck and Jiho’s cock in him, and it gets him hot, sitting alone in his studio. Even just the memory makes him put down his pencil and reach down to adjust himself. 

He thinks about it for a minute, whether he’s really going to jerk off to it. Sometimes Taehyun comes to visit him to work on songs and the doors don’t have locks, but. The more he thinks about last night the harder he gets until he decides, fuck it.

He splits his jeans open with one hand and shoves it in, getting a good handful. The rush when he touches himself is immediate, and he brings his cock out, warm in the air-conditioned room, in order to stroke himself properly. He’s all the way hard when he gets a message; he wouldn’t answer it except it’s Jiho’s message tone, and since Jiho’s the one that got Minho into this situation, maybe Minho could milk it a bit more.

 _Bored_ , the message reads, with a tired emoji. _What are you up to_

Minho almost texts back immediately before he gets an idea. He opens up the camera and points it to his lap, making sure to get the head of his cock and the precome leaking out of it in the shot, and sends a picture of it to Jiho.

The reply only takes a minute, in which Minho is imagining Jiho doing the same thing.

_You’re just begging me to come over_

_Hyung if you wanna hear me beg all you have to do is ask_ , Minho replies, feeling satisfied with himself. He knows how that would go, if Jiho was here: Jiho with that cocky smirk that shows his crooked teeth and makes him seem irresistible, and Minho on his knees, pushing his face into Jiho’s lap, breathing him in. Now Minho knows how good Jiho’s cock feels, he _would_ beg for it.

_Wouldn’t that just be begging for you to beg_

_Are you going to send me a dick pic or not_

Minho feels the build up of his approaching orgasm but he wants to hold out, wants to see what Jiho will do. It takes another few minutes, but what he gets is a video of Jiho lying on the couch in his studio, panning down his shirtless body to where his sweats are pushed down and his cock is out, hard, flushed, before the video cuts off. Minho knows he’s gone for Jiho when he rewinds the video and pauses on the shot of his face wearing the same expression he uses for every Instagram photo he wants to look artistic and humble in. Minho’s close to coming when he gets a new message.

_Wanna see you_

Minho opens the camera again and switches the view, sets his phone up on the desk to record, and starts stroking himself properly. He wants to put on a show, so he bites his lip, tilts his head back so his neck is exposed, rubs his other palm over his chest. He knows better than to keep his face in the frame in case this ever got leaked, but Jiho wanted to see him, and what Jiho wants, well. Distantly, the thought enters his mind that maybe Seungyoon might not approve of this, that it might be crossing another line, but Jiho wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t okay.

It doesn’t take him long to orgasm at the thought of Jiho getting off to this. He speeds up his strokes until he feels his balls start to tighten and comes, spurting all over his hand and t-shirt, feeling even more satisfied with himself. He lets himself breathe for about twelve seconds, smirking the whole time for Jiho’s benefit, before he stops the video and sends it. He doesn’t wait for the reply, but when he gets it he’s not disappointed.

—

Jiho only lasts a day after Minho sends him that video before he clears his schedule and drives to the dorms. He sends a warning in the form of a text message, a simple _Get Yoonie I’m coming over_ while he’s still in his car, so that by the time he gets there, Seungyoon’s waiting for him in the living room. Taehyun’s there too, looks like he’s napping on the couch before he glances at Jiho, but says nothing as Jiho grabs Seungyoon’s hand and pulls him towards Minho’s bedroom.

He’s all kinds of hyped up on the thrill of getting to do this, of being with his two of his best friends, two of the people he loves the most, and he all but barges into Minho’s room without knocking. Minho, shirtless and lounging on his bed, looks up from his laptop for a few seconds before a smile comes over his face, and Jiho grins back, like the fool in love he is.

“I brought you a present,” Jiho says, turning around to Seungyoon and pulling him close by his hips.

“Hyung,” Minho says, sounding embarrassed.

When Jiho turns back around Minho is blushing. “How do you want it?”

Minho shrugs, biting his lip. “I don’t mind.”

Jiho kneels on the bed in front of him and the mattress dips with his weight. “No seriously, how do you want it? I could do you again.”

Minho’s expression turns hungry. “Yeah, that. I want that.”

“Yoon-ah?” Jiho says, turning around to Seungyoon. “Mind if I watch Minho eat you out from behind?”

Seungyoon gives him a look like he doesn’t mind at all and gets on the bed beside them. Jiho doesn’t waste any time lifting Minho’s shirt over his head, kissing him as he drops it on the floor, pulling Minho up to stand. Minho’s body is a carefully sculpted work of art and Jiho takes a minute to admire it, thinking of all the things he could do with him, all the places he wants to touch him that he didn’t get to last time. He wants to do anything and everything Minho wants him to do. Judging by the look in Minho’s eyes whenever he catches Seungyoon and Jiho, that could be a lot of things.

He glances over Minho’s shoulder at Seungyoon, who is still lounging, naked now, looking like he’s waiting for them to get in the game. “Turn over,” Jiho says, as he spins Minho around, and Seungyoon does. Minho gives him a look like he’s asking permission, and Jiho smirks, says, “You’re up.”

Minho gets on the bed behind Seungyoon, who’s lying with his head pillowed on his arms, and touches him tentatively. Jiho loses his clothes as Minho strokes his hands up Seungyoon’s thighs, over his ass, getting a good handful.

“This okay?” Minho asks, and Seungyoon nods, his brow creased slightly like he’s impatient for Minho to get on with it. Jiho puts Minho’s hesitance down to not having done this in a while, because they’ve shared stories from their underground days, Jiho knows what Minho used to get up to, and he was never exactly shy, at least not to Jiho.

Jiho places a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay if you want to do something else, I should’ve asked.”

Minho shakes his head. “Hyung, I want to. I really want to.”

Jiho glances down at Seungyoon, spread out, toned, beautiful, and thinks that even if he was in Minho’s position he’d want it just as badly. He never doesn’t want it, but it’s Minho’s turn now, and Jiho’s willing to take a backseat to include Minho, to show him how much he wants Minho, too. He gets hard watching Minho lick into Seungyoon, feeling a gut-punch of arousal at just the sight, at the noise Seungyoon makes, at the way Minho closes his eyes and relaxes. Minho’s hands spread Seungyoon’s cheeks and he gets his tongue in deeper, looking like he’s savoring the way Seungyoon shudders underneath him. Seungyoon always loves when Jiho does this for him and Minho’s clearly just as good at it.

After a few minutes, Jiho grabs the lube from Seungyoon’s bedside table and gets into place behind Minho, pulling him by the hips until he gets up on his knees. He smooths his hands over the plane of Minho’s back, leaning over to kiss his shoulders, his spine, the divots in his lower back.

“Your body,” Jiho says, appreciatively.

“Your _tongue_ ,” Seungyoon says, a whine distorting the word.

Jiho pulls down Minho’s pants enough to get slick fingers between his cheeks. What he figured out last time is that Minho doesn’t need much prep. Either his body remembers his underground days and he can relax enough, or he’s been fooling around with someone all this time. Seungyoon hasn’t said anything about Minho dating anyone, and Minho’s a terrible liar, so it’s probably the first. It just means that by the time Jiho gets two fingers in, Minho’s turning around with a look that conveys how impatient he is.

“Hyung, it’s okay, I’m ready.”

Minho looks so sincere, Jiho doesn’t need to be told again. He slicks himself up and pushes in, and Minho responds immediately, dropping onto his forearms, resting his forehead on Seungyoon’s thigh above where he’s gripping. He bites his lower lip, and Jiho watches his expression change to a smile as Jiho bottoms out.

“Hyung, fuck,” Minho says, as Jiho uses his hips and starts to thrust.

“What?” Jiho asks, desperate to hear more of the filth that comes out of his mouth.

“You fuck me so good,” Minho says, whining it into Seungyoon’s skin. “Last time, I kept thinking about it for a week.”

“I know,” Jiho says, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice, “I got your video.”

“Then you know how much I wanted you to fuck me again.”

“I do now.”

Jiho does as Minho wants and dicks into him, letting himself be a bit rougher with him than he can be with Seungyoon, encouraging him to continue licking into Seungyoon with a hand on Minho’s chin. Minho’s moans must hit Seungyoon in the right spot because Seungyoon’s breathing grows heavy and he scrunches up his face, half of it pressed into the pillow. Jiho feels so much for him that he wants to kiss him all the time; the affection he felt for Seungyoon at the beginning of their relationship when they were eating strawberries at Jamwon hasn’t waned, it’s only grown stronger. He feels something similar for Minho, similar to how it was in the beginning with Seungyoon, a giddiness that makes him want to fuck the memory of everyone else out of him. With Seungyoon, Jiho is the only person he’s been with aside from Minho now, but Minho’s so experienced Jiho feels again the pressure to be good for him, just as good as he is for Seungyoon, wants to make Minho feel him for days.

“How do you want it?” Jiho asks, already feeling himself start to sweat in the dense air with the three of them in the room. He presses his hands to all the places he didn’t get to touch last time, Minho’s thighs, the knob of his spine, his shoulders.

“Fast,” Minho pulls back to say, “make me feel it. Just fuck me until all I feel is you.”

It’s easy enough for Jiho to do as Minho wants and start a steady rhythm that has him sweating more in minutes. He’s so used to taking it slow with Seungyoon, careful not to bruise him, careful of his pain tolerance, that this is—not so much new as fresh, and fun, so much fun. He fucks Minho with his fingers digging into Minho’s hips until Minho is panting into Seungyoon’s skin, biting into it so hard Seungyoon yelps and Minho apologises in between gasping breaths. Jiho feels good. Minho feels _good_.

He’s lucky for his stamina on stage that he can fuck Minho until Minho comes all over the sheets, a hand on his own dick, moaning into the air like an American pornstar in the trashy videos Jiho watches sometimes when Seungyoon is busy. It gives Jiho such an ego boost that he orgasms a minute later, pulling out just to come all over Minho’s ass and back.

“Oh shit,” Jiho says, laughing a little. “I hope that was okay, I didn’t mean to make a mess.”

Minho turns around to him with such a heavy-lidded look that Jiho’s laughter dies. “Hyung, I don’t care. Fuck me however you want, just as long as you fuck me.”

“Well that’s incentive enough,” Jiho says, dragging his fingers through the mess and into Minho again. “Want me to clean you up?”

Minho lets out a groan. “Let me catch my breath. You okay?” He asks Seungyoon, who looks wrecked from Minho’s tongue alone. “Can I suck you off?”

Seungyoon rolls over and off the bed. “I’m okay, I already came.” He starts picking his clothes up off the floor, mistaking Minho’s t-shirt for his own and pulling that on.

“Oh,” Minho says, dropping onto his stomach. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, I just got inspired.” Seungyoon flashes them a smile and leaves as Jiho reaches out to him and grasps only air, Seungyoon throwing a, “Don’t party too hard,” over his shoulder.

Jiho feels the loss of Seungyoon leaving and drops down in Seungyoon’s wet patch next to Minho, pulling him close, kissing him sweetly. He’s unsure how much of that is him wanting Minho and him wanting Seungyoon here to kiss him, too. It’s all blurring a little too much, lately.

“Mmm,” Minho says, smiling into the kiss. “It’s nice to be able to do this. You don’t know how badly I wanted to for so long.”

“Yeah?” Jiho asks. The surprise in his voice isn’t feigned. For so long he thought only of himself, not realising that Minho might want the same thing. It was so far out of his mind that even if he had considered it, it would have seemed an impossibility. “I didn’t even know I wanted it until I suddenly knew.”

Minho shifts until their bodies are closer, their legs entangled, says, “I didn’t know, either. It feels so right when you fuck me, it makes me feel so good.”

Jiho is taken aback, not at Minho’s honesty, his fucked-out vulnerable way of talking, but that it’s directed at him for once. “That’s good that I wanna keep fucking you, then.”

“Hyung,” Minho says, sighing a little. His gaze is steady and open. “This is going to sound cheesy but—” He stops himself, biting on his lip. “I’m really glad you’re in my life. I’m really glad I know you.”

Jiho kisses him again, trying to convey the same thing without words. It’s not much, but when Minho presses their bodies together, deepening the kiss, it’s clear to Jiho he gets it.

—

Seungyoon sits in his studio for a long time, his fingers unmoving on the keyboard. He knows it’s stupid, that it’s going to hurt him even worse than he already is, letting Minho and Jiho use him, but somehow over the course of hours trying to talk himself out of it he convinces himself it’s okay. If he were a stronger person, a better person, he would get out of their way and let them be together like they want to be, but he’s not. He loves Jiho too much, Minho too much, and he’s willing to let them ruin him.

—

A couple days later, after spending the day with his omma fending off questions about how Jiho is, Seungyoon finds himself in his studio with the man as he offers advice on a new song. Something about him being here reminds Seungyoon so much of what their relationship used to be like that he slips into old habits. It’s easy to get caught up in Jiho’s charm, to be enamored by his smile, that when Jiho pulls him over to the couch Seungyoon goes.

He leans back against the couch, letting the familiarity of the situation wash over him. It’s easy to forget they’re not now what they once were.

“Hold that pose,” Jiho says, and picks up Seungyoon’s phone from the desk. “Wait, how do you open the camera on this thing?”

Seungyoon takes it from him, feigning a sigh. “I have to teach you everything.” He unlocks his phone and opens the camera, passing it over.

Jiho takes a couple photos with his tongue between his teeth while Seungyoon smiles. “Beautiful. Amazing. Now do a sexy one.”

Seungyoon laughs and buries his face in the blanket. “I’m already sexy,” he says.

“True,” Jiho says, “but let’s take some for Minho.”

Even though Seungyoon feels as though a bucket of ice water has been dumped on him, he manages to keep smiling. It’s a reminder of what Jiho and Minho want him for, a reminder that he can’t get comfortable thinking Jiho is still in love with him when he treats Seungyoon like a prop.

“Okay,” Seungyoon says, and gets on his knees.

“Yeah,” Jiho says, getting on the floor to take more pictures as Seungyoon changes pose, leaning forward on his hands.

“How do I look?”

Jiho lowers the phone, his voice low and gaze heated. “Edible. Okay, I’m sending it.” He types out the message with a smirk on his face.

After a few seconds, Seungyoon says, “Show me,” and reaches for the phone.

Jiho pulls it towards himself. “No it’s fine, he got it.”

“I want to see the picture.” Seungyoon leans forward to snatch it out of Jiho’s hand and ends up half falling off the couch on top of him, but manages to get the phone. His messages app isn’t open. Instead, his phone is open to Instagram, and the first thing on the timeline is a picture of himself on his hands and knees. Anger washes over him, but as always the voice in the forefront of his mind tells him, dampen it. They won’t keep you around if you don’t act how they want you to. “Very funny,” he says, and deletes it. “The fans will definitely ask about this.”

Jiho, who has erupted into laughter, reaches out to poke Seungyoon’s cheek. “We’re just giving them what they want. It’s a turn on.” He raises his eyebrows and adopts a flirty smile.

“Maybe for you,” Seungyoon says.

“Baby, come on,” Jiho says, leaning into Seungyoon’s space, “I was joking around. I just wanted to show everyone how hot you are. I never get to do that. You know how hard that is for me.”

What Seungyoon knows is Jiho is just saying this to keep him around. He uploads a different picture with a different caption, and Jiho sticks around for another hour, but the anger Seungyoon feels leaves a bad taste in his mouth for the rest of the night.

—

Before they know it, it’s the end of May and they have to fly to China for filming. Jiho knows Seungyoon has spent time working on his Mandarin, is probably fluent by now, while Jiho has practiced some only to abandon it when he didn’t get any worthwhile results.

Jiho’s thinking too much about his own work to notice Seungyoon’s silence until he really notices it. They’ve gone through the cameras and the fans and the security and are halfway through the plane ride by the time Jiho notices Seungyoon hasn’t said much. It’s unusual that Seungyoon isn’t trying to pick his brain about what he’s working on, and Jiho’s torn between letting him think and annoying Seungyoon into talking to him.

“You okay?” Jiho asks.

Seungyoon gives him a blank smile. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

“Maybe you have the flu,” Jiho says, and Seungyoon shrugs.

“Maybe.”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

Seungyoon’s eyebrows furrow for a second before they smooth out. “I’m okay.” He puts his earbuds in and Jiho lets it go.

For a minute he listens to the muffled sound of “Inferiority Complex” through Seungyoon’s earbuds before he turns to Minho, who’s staring with his eyebrows furrowed at the sudoku app on his phone. When Jiho nudges him and he looks up with his mouth open, Jiho suppresses a smile. “I listened to the verse you sent me.”

Minho perks up. “Oh yeah? What did you think?”

Jiho shrugs. “It was alright.”

“Oh,” Mino says, his face falling.

Jiho laughs. “It was great. You’re really improving so much. I’m so proud of you.” He means it every time he says it, just how proud of Minho he is, as if it was his doing that Minho is flourishing, as if he himself sculpted Minho from clay and breathed life into him.

The corner of Minho’s mouth lifts in a smile Jiho can tell he’s trying not to let overwhelm his expression. Jiho feels that feeling again, the one he felt for Seungyoon on that picnic blanket watching him lick juice from between the webs of his fingers. “Thanks, hyung.”

“Is it for a solo?”

“Actually, Jiwon and I were thinking of doing a sub-unit, so it would probably be for that.”

“You better think of a catchy name.” Jiho settles back into the seat, stretching out his legs as Minho gives him a considering look and turns in his seat until he’s facing Jiho.

“The track is really rough right now. I was pretty much just messing around.”

“It’s good,” Jiho says, “the beat is solid, the lyrics too. Also,” he leans forward until his mouth and Minho’s ear are inches apart, “it’s really sexy.” Minho smirks like that was the point. “How does it go? ‘I’m talkin’ ‘bout your mom, I’m talkin’ ‘bout your dari…’”

Minho finishes the rest of the chorus with that same smirk. Even hearing it now, without the backing track, brings to mind such sensual imagery. Jiho can only imagine how good it will sound once it’s finished.

Jiho tugs on Minho’s fingers where they’re lying on the armrest. “I want to know who you wrote it about. I’m jealous of them.”

“You shouldn’t be jealous,” Minho says, and he’s not as good at being sexy when he tries, he’s better at being naturally sexy. Like now, when his voice goes unintentionally low and he glances up through his eyelashes, “you get me whenever you want me.”

Jiho feels his face heat up. For everything that’s happened between them, all he’s done with Minho and Seungyoon, it feels different talking about it outside of their own private bubble. He doesn’t care if anyone is listening, even though he should, but hearing the words when they’re not moaned out loud or muttered into his skin in the condensed air of Minhos bedroom makes him blush. Minho means what he’s saying. It’s real.

They’re still close enough to be kissing if they wanted to, if they weren’t in public. Jiho feels guilty that they only times they’ve kissed have been during or after sex. He wants to kiss Minho now, with no intent behind it, just to kiss him, just to convey even part of what Jiho feels for him. He settles for leaning back against the headrest and just looking at him, taking in the sweetness of his face and softness of his lips, his fingers tangling with Minho’s own.

—

They take pictures that night of just the three of them. Posting them to Instagram is the closest they get to announcing their relationship, and, for Jiho, right now that’s enough.

—

Minho is pumped up on a lot of things—the adrenaline of getting to perform in a new country, the looks Jiho sends him when he catches Minho’s eye, the way Seungyoon’s body responds under his—until he sees the way Seungyoon looks at Jiho on stage. People are watching them rehearse before filming starts and Minho remembers that enough to keep his face free of the jealousy he feels at the expression on Seungyoon’s. He thinks for a moment, he could have this, this is what he could have if they loved him the way they love each other, and then Seungyoon looks away, Jiho turns to him, and the moment is over.

—

Minho comes to his hotel room the next day, with his sunglasses on and shirt buttoned wrong, and Seungyoon can’t help the instinct to fix it for him. One of the assistants snaps the picture and posts it to Weibo, and that makes it easier, somehow, that to the outside world they are still SongKang, together, inseparable. It makes this situation easier to bear.

“Are you feeling okay?” Minho asks, and Seungyoon shrugs. “You’d think we’d be sick of competition shows by now.”

“Apparently we can’t get enough.” Minho looks so good up close, freshly-shaven, his makeup perfect, and the smell of his aftershave clouds Seungyoon’s judgement.

“I always think of Hanbin and Jiwon.” Minho’s voice gets a nostalgic quality to it, and Seungyoon feels a surge of it too. “That hell we went through—they went through it all over again, and worse. I don’t know how they got through it, or how we did.”

“We were running on fumes and adrenaline.” Seungyoon smooths down the collar of Minho’s shirt and drops his hands. “Done.”

“Thanks.” The assistant is gone and it’s just the two of them, the air between them stilted and cloying. Seungyoon wonders if Minho feels as uncomfortable as he does, as on the verge of doing something stupid like kissing Minho, unravelling in front of him, telling him things that should stay unspoken. He glances towards the door to see Jiho watching them, a small smile on his face.

Minho must notice, too, because he says, “What,” and when Seungyoon glances between them Minho has an equally dumb smile on his face. It takes everything for Seungyoon not to leave right then, get on a plane, go back to Korea and hide in his studio until promotions start and he absolutely has to face Minho.

“Time to go,” Jiho says, and leads the way.

—

Seungyoon thought maybe they could keep it at least somewhat subtle, that even if they had to flaunt it in his face Jiho and Minho would keep secret to everyone else what they were doing, but as he watches Jiho watch Minho strip off his shirt and reach for his performance outfit he realises that was never going to happen. Seungyoon’s sitting in his dressing room as the stylists touch up his makeup, watching in the mirror’s reflection as Jiho stares hungrily at the planes of Minho’s broad back and comes up behind him to pull him around. Like a trainwreck, it seems to happen in slow motion and Seungyoon can’t look away from how Jiho’s lips graze Minho’s throat, the collision, and his hands touch Minho’s sides, the people falling into each other, and Minho’s head tips back, the spilled lego blocks of the carriages crashing together. Jiho’s hands cup Minho’s ass and the expression on Minho’s face is beatific. They don’t even shut the door, they’re that shameless. At least Seungyoon had the decency to keep Jiho’s hands off him when there were people around, but it seems Minho doesn’t have the self-awareness or Jiho the self-control.

The stylists haven’t noticed and don’t bat an eye at the way Jiho breaks off to close the door, catching Seungyoon’s eye with a raised-eyebrows kind of smirk that makes Seungyoon more angry than anything, more fed up with them than he can put into words. He doesn’t stay in the dressing room longer than he needs to knowing what’s happening across the hall, and in his anger doesn’t notice when he walks past that the door is slightly ajar.

Inside Minho’s dressing room, Jiho runs his hands up and down Minho’s sides and chest and back, kissing him like he’s missed him, which is stupid. They’ve been together since the day before, pretty much every minute, though Minho’s not complaining. He kisses Jiho back just as eagerly, enjoying his touch and the way he uses his lips. It can’t lead to anything here while they’re filming, not right now in this dressing room, and it’s nice just to kiss without intent behind it.

Jiho sighs into his mouth and grips Minho harder. “I wish we could do this more. If we weren’t filming in China right now I’d take you to my bed and keep you there.”

“You always say the sweetest things,” Minho says, only half sarcastic. “Do you want to get Seungyoon?”

Jiho kisses him again and takes another few seconds to break away. “Yeah, I left the door open if he wants to come in.”

“Oh,” Minho says, before he steps towards the door. When he opens it, Seungyoon is gone. “Huh.”

Jiho comes up behind him. “He was there a second ago. Oh well, more for me.” He starts kissing the back of Minho’s neck and Minho has to close the door before the stylists in Seungyoon’s dressing room notice. Jiho turns him around and pushes him up against it, kissing him again in a way that makes Minho lightheaded. He breaks off again, mouthing down Minho’s throat. “I was going to say, I know you like Seungyoon just as much as you like me. Maybe more, and I’m okay with that.”

“Hyung, I can’t compare how I feel for either of you,” Minho says, but Jiho shushes him and pulls back to look him in the eye. 

“I want us to be together, all three of us, which means you two have to have a relationship, too. One that doesn’t have to include me.”

He looks sincere enough that Minho can tell he isn’t joking. “Okay,” Minho says, “yeah.”

“I want you two to be together, so the three of us can be together, does that make sense?”

Minho nods.

“Also,” Jiho says, nipping at the shell of Minho’s ear, his breath warm and sweet, “watching you together is really fucking hot.”

Minho can feel his pants start to tighten at the heat and proximity of Jiho’s body and struggles not to press into him, caught by the heady scent of his skin as if it’s the pull of the ocean sucking him in. It has always been this way for him: Minho caught in Jiho’s riptide, knowing if he struggles he’ll end up drowning, that it’s easier to go with the flow. Performing underground with him was like swimming in uncharted waters, watching him on stage and joining him the time of Minho’s life until he debuted with Seungyoon, until Jiho joined him again on the _Show Me The Money_ stage.

It wasn’t enough for him to just shared the stage with Jiho. He wanted what Jiho had, has: a place at the top. After their semi final round performance they stumbled back to Jiho’s place, already pretty trashed by the time they got there, on the stage high and the win and several bottles of soju.

Minho hadn’t been there in a while, and he took the time while slumped on the couch to look around and admire the Jiho-ness of the place: collectible toys and plushies in glass cases, Block B albums and their artwork on the walls, framed photos of Block B winning their various awards. He couldn’t help thinking that could be him in a few years: a producer on _Show Me The Money_ , the best idol rapper, a household name, an icon. It was within reach.

Jiho stretched out on the couch next to him, drunk enough that he let his legs fall open and his thigh touch Minho’s, but it was a comforting kind of touch, friendly. Jiho had already been dating Seungyoon for long enough that Minho had gotten used to the idea of never being with either of them, even if he had a choice. They were in love, and it showed on Jiho’s face every time he got a text from Seungyoon, every time Jiho came to the dorms and Minho answered the door, only for Seungyoon to come up behind him and usher Jiho inside. Minho had made himself so comfortable with the idea of Seungyoon and Jiho as an item, as a couple that was going to last, that he didn’t feel uncomfortable with Jiho’s proximity. Still, it didn’t make wanting him any easier to deal with.

“You were amazing tonight.” Jiho had a beer in his hand and smoothed his thumb over the precipitation on the neck of the bottle. “You really dominated that stage, and you deserved that win. Finals, baby!”

Minho laughed and took a sip from his own beer. Praise from Jiho always meant so much more to him than from anybody else. Maybe it was something about how they’d in a way grown up together, and how Jiho was always light years ahead of him and everybody else even when he was a teenager. He was about to respond when Jiho’s phone sounded with a message.

“Seungyoon,” Jiho said, and there was that look again, that soft-eyed almost-smile and his laser-focused attention that anyone had a hard time interrupting. “He asked how it went. Should I tell him how many women came up to you offering themselves for the night? Jessi had her eye on you.”

“Don’t you dare,” Minho said, not that Seungyoon would do anything but laugh and make a joke about how Jessi would devour him whole. Jiho turned to him with that same expression, and it didn’t fade after a few seconds of looking away from his phone and it made Minho think that – maybe, just maybe, it was directed at him this time.

“Anyone would kill to spend a night with you, you know that, right? You’re not just Song Minho anymore, you’re Mi-no, Hugeboy, and you’ve proved what a force to be reckoned with you are.”

“I’m already popular, hyung,” Minho said, just to be a shithead.

Jiho gave him a look that said he agreed, but. “It’s going to be out of control after this is over. Artists will ask you to join their labels, and fans with throw themselves at you, and magazines will print your face and your body on their front covers, and people will copy even the most innocuous things you do. They’re going to want to listen to you breathe. People are going to ask your opinion and state it as fact. You might not know what to do with that kind of influence.” He paused for a second to let that sink in. “People are going to ask you to do things that you can’t say no to, but when you do, when you say no, it’ll make you that much more desirable. It could be the best and worst time of your life, if you let it.”

Jiho’s tone was light but the words made the atmosphere heavy. While he said his piece he gravitated closer, and his proximity and the smell of carbonated apples on his breath made Minho’s head spin.

“Everyone thought I was going to hurt him on purpose,” Jiho said. Minho couldn’t discern the trajectory from fame to Seungyoon, and he didn’t try to. Seungyoon is always on their minds, a constant breeze that blows the smell of home back to them. They have both been captivated by him since before either of them met him, Minho and Jiho watching SuperStarK together on Minho’s omma’s tv, both of them knowing Seungyoon was someone they needed to watch out for, this skinny beanstalk of a kid who had a voice as powerful as his stage presence and was going to outshine them both. Minho understood what Jiho meant, because he thought it as well.

“They were just looking out for him. Even I made the mistake of thinking Seungyoon is more fragile than he looks. He’s actually tougher than both of us combined.”

Jiho smiled a little. “They were right, though. Everyone trying to protect Seungyoon, they were right. I didn’t care about him, not at first. He was just this – goal, this – box that I needed to tick to say I’d done it. Did you ever wonder why I was so relentless?”

“Yes,” Minho said. They were finally getting to the truth of it, what Minho suspected all these years, what he wanted so desperately to believe during the first stage of Jiho and Seungyoon’s relationship: that Jiho was only using Seungyoon because he couldn’t have Minho.

“Even I don’t know why I was so relentless, I think I was just narcissistic to think I could use someone like Seungyoon. It was never going to go any way but the way it did. Everybody falls for him, but I thought I would be different, I really thought I wouldn’t fall in love with him. All I can say is that I was younger, and not as good a person as I am now that I know him.”

Minho felt his throat start to tighten and swallowed through it. Jiho’s hand was on his thigh. It seemed like there was more he wanted to say but he was too drunk and his head lolled back onto the couch, his smile widening to something deranged. Minho was already sobering up, sober enough to picture Seungyoon at home, alone, in his bed, falling asleep while waiting for Jiho’s reply, and Minho couldn’t stand being there with that thought in his head.

They were in love. That’s why Minho left that night. He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself had he let Zico touch his cheek and press their lips together, crawl into his lap and feel Minho growing hard underneath him. He would never have it in him to hurt Seungyoon that badly or to make Jiho into the person everyone thought he was going to be.

What Minho felt in that moment for Jiho, he feels that again now, Jiho’s fingers pressed into his hips, his nose buried in Minho’s neck, knows that the best times of his life aren’t behind him, but laid out before him ready to live.

—

He’s done so well pretending and letting them think he’s fine, but as soon as Jiho stops him from grabbing the sunglasses and picks Minho to go first, Seungyoon is reminded of his place. It seems so dramatic, and he’s sick of it, sick of himself for thinking these things and reacting the way he is, but even that reaction is sickening to him. He can’t win, no matter what he does. Whether it’s with Minho and Jiho, or himself, he’s on the losing end.

When the cameras stop filming and they’ve changed back into their day clothes, Seungyoon doesn’t bother telling anyone where he’s going, he just takes himself to his hotel to relax and get away from everyone. He strips and gets into bed and takes a selca, because he can, and there’s no one to stop him, and it feels like something he would do if he was happy. 

—

Even if Winner hadn’t gone to Daegu after they all came back to Seoul, Jiho knows his boundaries. Seungyoon has told him before it gets suspicious if he comes around to the dorms all the time, that it’s okay if every once in awhile they’re seen grabbing sushi together at three in the morning, but no more than once in awhile. It works out mostly because both of them are so busy, Seungyoon and Jiho and Winner and Block B, but Jiho always felt like he was missing out when he wasn’t with Seungyoon. That feeling has doubled now that Minho’s in the picture, but there’s nothing he can do about it except invite them over when they’re in the country. He uploads a selca to their group chat and leaves his phone on his kitchen bench.

“Taewoon!” he calls, picking up two bowls and walking into the living room where Jiseok is nursing a beer on his couch. “The food is ready, help me bring it in.” Jiseok looks up from the tv, and Jiho stops when he sees what’s playing on it, Kyung half-singing half-whispering the melody before Yukwon’s part starts. “Oh, man, turn that off.”

“I haven’t seen it yet,” Jiseok says.

“It’s already been out for a month and a half, but sure, you’ve been busy.”

“Mom’s set it as her ringtone. I’ve heard it, I just haven’t seen the MV.” Jiseok sighs and stands. “What are you feeding me tonight?” He walks with Jiho to the kitchen to grab the other plates and settle in to eat in silence as the rest of the MV plays. Jiho sometimes gets embarrassed watching his MVs with other people because it feels like boasting, in a way, but his brother isn’t really people. He’s just Jiseok.

“Mom says you’re trying out for _Show Me The Money_ again,” Jiho says, through a mouthful of spicy beef.

Jiseok shrugs, takes his cap off to shake out his hair. “Yeah, I am. I think I can do better this time.”

Jiho takes a minute to choose his next words carefully. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s lecturing his older brother. “You know it’s all fake, right? They pick people they want to make look good, or bad, or whatever. Olltii didn’t really hate Bobby and Hanbin, that was just for show. Sure, there are talented rappers on there, and they usually make it pretty far, but the whole point of the show is to create as much drama as possible so that people will watch it.”

Jiseok gives him a flat look. “You really think you got all the brains in the family. Shit, little brother.”

“I’m just saying, don’t get sucked into it.”

“Jiho, I’ll be fine. Your concern is touching, really.” He picks up a piece of beef and waves it in Jiho’s face, and Jiho rolls his eyes, considers dumping his soup on Jiseok’s head. “I want to prove that I’m a good rapper.”

“You could just join another company. Being an idol isn’t so bad.”

“You’re just saying that because you’ve got the best of both worlds.” Jiseok puts his chopsticks down. He looks a little sad, but also like he’s trying not to show it. “I can be a part of that world, too.”

Jiho doesn’t tell him not to, because it’s his choice. Doesn’t tell him that he should release another mixtape and keep doing shows, because it’s not Jiho’s place, and Jiseok is going to do what he’s going to do anyway, regardless of what Jiho says. 

Jiseok picks his chopsticks back up. “How’s Seungyoon?”

“Good, good. We uh,” he starts, then drops it, “yeah, good. There was something that happened, but it’s okay now, it doesn’t matter. It’s all sorted.”

Jiseok gives him a considering look and picks up his beer again. Jiho focuses on his food, never sure what Jiseok is going to come out with to destroy whatever stability of mind Jiho has built in a way only an older brother can. “Do you remember that time when we were kids and you sprained your wrist falling off your bike?”

“Yeah,” Jiho says, eyeing him suspiciously.

“You practically broke it, but you wouldn’t tell mom. Every time I brought it up you said it was fine, but I saw you wince in pain whenever you moved it.”

“I thought she was going to take the bike back,” Jiho says. “I begged for months to get that bike and crashed it the first time I rode it. I thought if she knew that I’d hurt myself she’d take the bike off me because I was careless.”

“No, that’s not it,” Jiseok says, huffing out a laugh. “Your pride was hurt. Young kid, new bike, you thought you were hot shit, and then you fell off it immediately and busted your wrist. And then you refused to admit anything was wrong because you didn’t want to admit you’d fucked up. I had to drag your ass to the school nurse myself.”

“That I remember,” Jiho says. The bandage the nurse wrapped his wrist up with smelled used, and Jiseok watched her the whole time, protecting Jiho the way he’d always protected him. That afternoon, Jiho told their omma and she’d taken him to the hospital to get an x-ray, fussing over him, making him feel even worse that he lied to her. “Mom didn’t take my bike, though.”

“I know,” Jiseok says, and, after he drains the last of his beer, “everything always works out in the end for you, doesn’t it?”

—

Seungyoon knows what he’s doing, and why he’s doing it. It may be for stupid, masochistic reasons, but at least the reasons are clear to him. He’s not blindly following an instinct but has considered the situation with cold clarity and reasoned that it’s better that he has Minho and Jiho in his life like this than not at all. So he doesn’t leave when Jiho comes into the living room and sits between him and Minho where before there had been only uncomfortable silence masked by the noise of the tv, he lets Jiho’s thigh press against his, kisses back when Jiho leans in, watches Jiho kiss Minho and lets his heart break only a little bit. 

He doesn’t join in their conversation more than is necessary not to make them worry about him, and Minho and Jiho get along so well, have known each other for so many years, it’s easy for them to get wrapped up in each other, their conversations like tangled headphone cords, never sure where they begin or end, the words overlapping even though the message is still clear. Seungyoon lets whatever is playing on the tv wash over him while he tries to ignore what’s going on beside him, and, even though he can’t leave, it takes all his strength not to go. He’s not listening to the conversation so he’s not sure when it changes from words to the sounds of them kissing and pulling back to start laughing and kissing and whispering and kissing and Minho sighing softly. Not long after Seungyoon notices, Jiho swings his leg over and sits in Minho’s lap, and Seungyoon glances over as Jiho cups Minho’s face with one hand and reaches the other one down between them. Minho moans into the kiss again, breaks off to say, “Bedroom,” and Jiho grins, stands, pulls Minho up.

“You coming?” Jiho asks Seungyoon, who shakes his head and turns back to the tv. 

“Tired,” Seungyoon says, feigning a yawn, “you go ahead.”

Jiho and Minho pause as if they’re not sure that he’s serious, but they’re holding each other’s fingers and blocking the tv. 

“Are you sure?” Jiho says, and Seungyoon has had enough of being their buffer. If they want to be with each other, if they don’t want him, he’s okay with that. Maybe they’ll stop using him when they realise they don’t need him and he won’t have to be strong enough to be the first one to break away. They’ve already been together, just the two of them, and Seungyoon can only imagine what went on in that dressing room, so maybe they’re already halfway to realising.

“Yeah,” Seungyoon says, fishing the remote from between the couch cushions. “You two have fun. Wear a condom. Be safe.” He’s joking, but Jiho’s eyes go wide in shock.

“Condoms,” he says, “I didn’t even think of it, I’m so used to not using them. Fuck.”

“Hyung, I’m clean,” Minho says, before he glances down and then back up, stepping closer. He lowers his voice but Seungyoon still hears the, “And I like it when you come in me,” but wishes he didn’t. Jiho tightens his grip on Minho’s fingers and leads the way into his bedroom without looking back at Seungyoon, and that’s fine.

—

Minho looks amazing spread out over his mattress, his arms stretched up holding onto the bed head while Jiho explores his body with his hands. His skin is soft and smooth and warm, the plump muscles of his pecs and abs hard beneath Jiho’s fingers, Minho’s nipples hardening as Jiho smooths his fingertips over them. 

Minho moans a little and bucks up. “Sensitive,” he says, by way of explanation.

“Yeah?” Jiho does it again, a softer touch this time that elicits the same response. He can feel Minho swell against his ass and he ducks down to take Minho’s nipple into his mouth sucking hard enough that he arches his back and pushes his chest in Jiho’s face. He’s making these soft little “ah, ah” noises that Jiho can’t get enough of and licks over the raised bump of Minho’s nipple while he teases the other with his thumb. 

“Hyung,” Minho whines. 

“Tell me if this feels good,” Jiho says, and Minho nods. He lets go of the bed to card his hand through Jiho’s hair, pushing it off his forehead. Jiho pushes into Minho’s hand before he leans down again to kiss Minho’s chest, licking over the rise of his pec, lathing his tongue over Minho’s skin before he sucks on his nipple again.

Minho lets out a frustrated noise. “How did you know I would like this so much?”

“I remembered,” Jiho says, with a smile. “You told me once how one of your girlfriends would tease you this way, and it must’ve stuck in my mind. Maybe because I wanted to do it to you, but I just didn’t know it at the time. Seungyoonie likes it, too, he’s just not as sensitive.”

Minho closes his eyes and Jiho leans forward to kiss his throat, leading a trail of kisses down to his chest again, running his thumbs under the lumps of muscle there.

“What else does Seungyoonie like?”

“Kissing,” Jiho says, demonstrating, pressing his lips to Minho’s. His register drops as he continues, “Eye contact. Touching. Getting to the point of orgasm and then stopping, so that when he does come it’s that much more intense and satisfying. He loves to get on top of me, push me down on my back and ride me. I love it, too. You should see him. Maybe he’ll do the same for you, if you tell him you want it.”

Minho’s all but rutting his cock against Jiho’s bare ass, looking for friction, and Jiho grinds back down onto him before he moves down Minho’s body and settles between his knees. He lifts Minho’s thighs molasses slow and pushes them up towards his chest, watching closely for the way Minho exhales through his mouth and waits for Jiho to move him. If Jiho had known how responsive Minho would be to how Jiho touches the meat of his thighs and bend of his knees and the bones of his ankles as he lifts them onto his own shoulders he might have thought about doing this earlier. Maybe the thought would have occurred to him as an actual conscious, tangible thing, something he could mold into an action, instead of a fleeting desire he pushed down because he’d never thought of Minho that way, not really, not the way he’d thought of Seungyoon. He’d known Minho before he knew what it was to want anyone, and by the time he’d figured that out he was so used to what he felt for Minho it became a dull, familiar ache.

He’s here now, though. In this room, with this man looking up at him like he can’t believe it either. He slicks himself up, presses in just to hear more of the sounds Minho makes, and to feel him, and to show how much he wants him. Minho’s head lolls to the side and he covers his eyes with his arm, as if maybe he can’t look at the proof of how much Jiho wants him, the way Jiho finds it hard to look at Minho with the weight of everything Minho feels staring back at him. As much as Jiho wants to see him, he lets Minho look away.

—

Seungyoon spends the rest of the afternoon on the couch with the sounds of them lingering in his ears, the way Minho makes Jiho moan loud enough that Seungyoon can hear it from the living room and through the walls of his bedroom, their rhythmic fucking that’s harder and faster than what Seungyoon and Jiho do. It makes his stomach turn to think that Jiho can fuck Minho the way he can’t fuck Seungyoon, because Seungyoon is delicate, but he still listens.

—

He wakes up on the couch with his face smooshed into a pillow and Taehyun looking down at him fondly.

“Oh,” Seungyoon says, wiping sleep from his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Eleven thirty. You slept the whole morning away.”

He sits up and looks around until everything stops being hazy and he can concentrate on even one thought. He needs to piss. That’s a thought he can hold onto. “Did I miss anything?”

“Minho and Jinwoo went to get ice cream, or sushi, or something, I wasn’t listening.”

“Minho hates sushi.” Seungyoon sits back against the couch, exhausted from too much sleep. He spent the night in his studio and then fell asleep on the couch as the sun rose, watching a movie on tv. Another movie is playing right now, maybe it’s the same one. The costumes look familiar, and so do the actors, but trying to remember what the movie was about last night or who was in it is like trying to catch water with open fingers. “We should do something. Let’s go out.”

“I don’t feel like it,” Taehyun says, flicking through channels with the remote. Then, a beat later, “what do you want to do?”

“Let’s just catch the subway somewhere and spend the whole day out. Let’s have a picnic.”

“Minho said Jiho is coming back today,” Taehyun says, “have a picnic with them.” He looks bored, and sad, and Seungyoon’s heart hurts for him, but if Seungyoon isn’t allowed to sit and mope all day then neither is Taehyun.

“Come on,” Seungyoon says, suddenly feeling more energized now he has a plan in mind. “Maybe we’ll meet some fans and have something to upload to instagram other than Jinwoo’s cats or our studios.” He snatches the remote out of Taehyun’s hand and switches the tv off. Taehyun gives him an irritated look before he sighs, and Seungyoon breaks out in a grin.

He takes a piss and they throw on some clothes and then they leave the claustrophobic atmosphere of the dorm behind them to join the waking world, the cloying mess of the subway with what feels like eight hundred thousand other people catching it with them, the fresh air, the sunshine. He doesn’t realise how hungry he is or that they’ve forgotten about the picnic until they walk past a string of restaurants in Mangwon and his nostrils catch the scent of cooked meat. Taehyun doesn’t take much convincing to go in; he’s already gone along with it so far, Seungyoon figures he’ll wring all he can out of this outing.

“Have you started working on anything?” Seungyoon asks as the waiters pile meat in front of them. One of them gives Seungyoon a smile and he makes a note to take a selca with her later, if she asks.

“For the next album? We just released one.” Taehyun gives him a dry smile that seems like challenge.

“Sorry, I should rephrase. What are you working on for our next album?”

Taehyun laughs, and when he ducks his head his hair falls into his eyes. His laughter is infectious and Seungyoon finds himself smiling back. Somehow, in the difficulty of the last two months, Seungyoon forgot how easy things can be with the people he cares about. Even if one area of his life is a mess doesn’t mean the rest have to be. 

“I’ve got some stuff. I’ve been listening to a couple artists, I guess I’ve been inspired.” Taehyun grows more animated the more he talks, waving the tongs around. He’s always so composed on camera, so proper, not as lively as he is when it’s just him and Seungyoon and a table of sizzling meat. “I’ve been experimenting with instruments and chord arrangements. What I’ve got is a lot different than what I did for _Exit : E_ , it’s more folk rock, indie-pop, a little bit of soul. I’m really into arpeggios right now.”

“That sounds promising,” Seungyoon says.

“Come by my studio when you’re free, I’ll show you.”

He’s not in the habit of swinging by Taehyun’s studio, but maybe he should be. He’s spent enough time in Minho’s studio, and Minho’s spent enough time in his, and maybe listening to what Taehyun is working on will help him out of his own slump. Or, maybe not. Maybe sorting out the love triangle he’s in will help him out of his own slump. He shakes his head to clear it and starts transferring the cooked meat from the grill. It sizzles and pops and smells good to his empty stomach.

When he looks up, Taehyun’s watching him, looking concerned. “It’s not my business, what you’re doing with Jiho and Minho,” he says, “but you don’t seem happy,” and Seungyoon looks away, embarrassed that Taehyun’s bringing it up, that he can tell. He didn’t care at first, when he was covered in bruises and Minho and Jiho were kissing in front of him, but he cares now that Taehyun has expressed concern. He waited until they were in public to bring it up, when Seungyoon can’t run or go to his room to avoid the conversation. 

He looks back up again, this time with a shrug and a grin. “I’m with both of them, how can I not be happy?”

Taehyun’s lips purse slightly, like he’s not satisfied with Seungyoon’s response, and it makes Seungyoon panic, a little, because it’s showing to Taehyun, and if it’s showing to Taehyun, it must be showing to Minho and Jiho.

“Okay,” Taehyun says, pulling more meat onto the grill.

“Okay?”

“Okay. You don’t want to talk about it. I get it.”

Seungyoon feigns a laugh, which sounds so hollow to him that there’s no way Taehyun would believe it. “Taehyun-ah, there’s nothing to talk about. Anyway, I think you should be focusing on yourself right now. Just focus on getting better.”

“Yeah,” Taehyun says, his expression flat and cold. “Sure. I’ll do that. But if you’re not doing the same you could at least not be a fucking hypocrite.” He pitches his voice low so that Seungyoon can barely hear him over the noise of the people around them. He feels guilty as soon as the words are out of Taehyun’s mouth, manipulating him like this just to avoid looking at himself and the situation he’s put himself in, and he doesn’t blame Taehyun for being angry at him. He’s angry at himself. 

“You’re right,” he says, “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“Yeah? You’re going to stop being an asshole?”

“Yes,” Seungyoon says, and he smiles again to show his contrition. He shouldn’t push Taehyun away, because Taehyun is important to him, and he’s one of the few important people in his life that isn’t making him regret every decision he makes, even the ones he wants to. 

—

Minho’s train of consciousness becomes a constant stream of thinking about what Seungyoon likes and wanting to experience it. When he knocks on Seungyoon’s door it’s with his heart beating in his throat and the anticipation of getting to touch Seungyoon again mounting. He’s just lying on top of the covers petting Rei but the way the dying sunlight plays on his bare skin stirs something in Minho that isn’t entirely physical. Seungyoon always wears practically nothing around the apartment and in the past Minho’s had to suppress the ideas it’s given him, but now he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t realise he’s lingering in the doorway until Seungyoon glances up.

“Hey,” he says, and a soft smile tugs at his lips. Rei notices the door is open and bounds off of Seungyoon’s chest, out the room in a flash.

“Hey,” Minho says, closing the door behind him. Seungyoon draws his knees up when Minho comes over so he can sit down. “Are you feeling any better?”

Seungyoon’s eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Am I feeling better?”

“I thought you had the flu. You seemed really tired and out of it these past few days.”

“Oh,” Seungyoon says, and smiles again. There’s something off about it that Minho can’t pinpoint. “Yeah, I was tired. I’m okay now.”

Minho doesn’t want to think that Seungyoon is lying to him, because Seungyoon’s never lied to him before, and if he is then it would be for a good reason, so Minho believes him. Silence elapses between them that isn’t entirely comfortable and Minho is reminded of how awkward things have been between them lately. Jiho’s words about having a relationship with Seungyoon ring in his head but the way to go about that isn’t clear to him. 

“Jiho called me before,” he says, and Seungyoon responds with a non-committal sound. “He’s pretty busy right now, but he’ll come over when he can. He said he missed you, last time.”

“Did he,” Seungyoon says, his voice soft.

“Yeah. He said it’s not the same when you’re not there.”

“Sorry to put that pressure on you,” Seungyoon says. He pushes his lips out slightly and Minho can’t help staring at them, how soft they look, how full they are.

Minho scoffs. “He didn’t mean it like _that_ ,” he says, adding, “I don’t think. I mean. He just wants you there, we both do.” He tries not to chicken out of the next thing he wants to say, and it comes out quieter than he intends. “We always want you.”

“Oh,” Seungyoon says, glancing out the window before he meets Minho’s eyes. He’s always been the braver of the two. “Do you want me now?”

“Yes,” Minho says without hesitation, his throat dry. Seungyoon’s knees drop open until one of his feet is on the floor and the other stretches behind Minho’s back, and his gaze grows heated, drawing Minho forward until he’s on his knees in front of Seungyoon, leaning over to crush their mouths together. Seungyoon reacts instantly, kissing Minho with a hand on the back of his skull, straightening up to get closer to him. Seungyoon’s lips are so soft and dry and feel amazing against Minho’s own.

Even though it’s only happened twice, Minho doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of kissing Seungyoon. The kiss is heavy, and intense, and overpowering to the point that Minho wonders if he’s ever going to be able to think about a time before he kissed Seungyoon, before Seungyoon kissed him back. As much as he _wants_ Seungyoon with an intensity that makes him question if he’s ever wanted anything else, he also just wants to keep kissing him, hold his hand, hold him, and he’s content to just kiss until he feels Seungyoon’s hand cup him through his slacks, his intent clear.

“Yeah,” Minho says between kisses, “okay, yeah.” He grabs Seungyoon’s thighs and drags him closer to make enough room for him to lay down and Minho to lean over him with his hands planted beside Seungyoon’s head. The look Seungyoon gives him makes his throat tight and his dick hard at the same time and he feels as nervous as he did when he first met Seungyoon, knowing this is someone he had to impress after all those nights spent watching SuperStarK with Jiho, hearing Seungyoon’s name tossed around, hearing his voice on the radio. Seungyoon was a legend before he was a person, and Minho feels the remnants of his insecurity and need to prove himself. He wants to make Seungyoon feel good. He wants to make sure Seungyoon never forgets him.

He pulls Seungyoon’s underwear off and drinks in the sight of him, touching him as he does, his pale limbs, his mostly-soft cock nestled in a patch of dark hair, the defined plane of his stomach, the dark spots of his nipples. There’s so much of him and yet nothing at all. He seems so fragile in Minho’s hands, like one wrong move would break him, but Minho knows better. He responds so well under Minho’s touch, making soft noises and arching his back, gripping the bars behind him when Minho ducks down and takes him into his mouth. 

It doesn’t take long until Seungyoon is hard, nudging against Minho’s front palate with the way his hips stutter. The taste of his come is just as good as kissing him. He’s never been averse to it, but Minho’s given a lot of blowjobs and he’s learned that the more you like someone the better they taste. Even if he wasn’t already aware, with how good Seungyoon tastes, Minho’s sure he’s in love with him. It’s never been something he’s naturally good at, but he wants Seungyoon to feel good, so he hollows his cheeks and takes him as deep as he can.

Minho uses his mouth and his hand to bring Seungyoon to the point of grabbing a handful of Minho’s hair and thrusting into Minho’s mouth before Minho pulls back.

“Fuck,” Seungyoon says, drawing the sound out. “Your mouth is incredible.”

“Don’t come just yet,” Minho says, filing the praise away for later, “I want to fuck you first, and you get over sensitive, right?”

Seungyoon nods and wraps one of his legs around Minho’s waist to bring him closer. He kisses Minho again, seemingly unconcerned with tasting himself, and even that’s hot. Seungyoon is pretty shameless in the things he does when he’s enjoying himself, and Minho’s always loved that about him. He doesn’t wait for permission, and he doesn’t care what other people think of him enough to let it stop him from doing what he wants. He kisses Minho passionately, and with each minute that passes while he does, Minho’s feelings grow deeper. He didn’t think it was possible, but he also didn’t think Seungyoon would ever want to be with him like this. 

“How do you want me?” Seungyoon asks, and the answers that come to Minho’s mind are overwhelming.

“Just like this,” Minho says, running a hand down Seungyoon’s side until he gets to his hip, wrapping a hand around his cock. “I want to look at you. You look so good like this, it should be illegal.”

“Yeah? Are you going to lock me up?” Seungyoon grins and it’s so effortless, so natural, something in Minho’s chest clenches when he realises all Seungyoon’s other smiles lately have been feigned. 

“Seungyoon-ah,” he says, trying to be brave for once, “are you really okay? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

As soon as the words leave Minho’s mouth, Seungyoon’s grin fades and his expression turns stony. It’s the wrong thing to ask, and Minho feels stupid. If Seungyoon hasn’t told him yet what’s wrong, then he’s not going to. “Can you just fuck me? I love it when you fuck me, it makes me feel so good, please.” Even that sounds put-on, and if Minho knew what else to do, if he was capable of saying no to Seungyoon, he would stop and make Seungyoon tell him what’s wrong. Instead, he shucks his clothes off and reaches for the lube next to Seungyoon’s bed to slick his fingers up. 

Seungyoon’s still so tight and his pain tolerance is pretty much nil, so Minho takes his time stretching him, cataloguing all the sounds and expressions he makes, the way he grips the bars tighter when Minho finds his prostate. He’s leaking from the tip of his cock, pooling on his belly, and Minho catalogues that too. He’s so close to saying something that Seungyoon doesn’t want to hear right now, but the feeling overwhelms him, makes his chest tight and his skin tingle with goosebumps. 

“Please,” Seungyoon says, a choked-out noise that Minho is in no way immune to. Seungyoon’s still tight when Minho pushes in, and he feels so good Minho’s vision clouds and he has trouble breathing right until he bottoms out and gets used to the sensations. Seungyoon’s eyes are squeezed shut and his mouth open and Minho’s worried about hurting him, about being too much for him to take until a minute later when Seungyoon says, “Move, please,” and Minho does.

Fucking Seungyoon is always an experience. He responds so readily, pulling Minho in to kiss him, sighing into his mouth when Minho thrusts into him, and even that puff of air overwhelms him. He starts to thrust properly, grabbing onto Seungyoon’s hips and pushing in as far as he can until Seungyoon cries out, arching his back, opening his eyes to look up at Minho with an expression Minho loses himself in. Minho touches him everywhere he can, loving the feel of his skin beneath his own hands.

As much as Minho wants to keep looking at him, it’s too much right now, and he buries his face in the crook of Seungyoon’s neck, losing himself in what he’s feeling, in how tight and warm Seungyoon’s body is, in the smell of his sweat clouding Minho’s nostrils. He nips at Seungyoon’s neck and chest, kissing over the places he sinks his teeth in. He keeps thrusting, vaguely picking up the sounds Seungyoon’s making, trying to focus on more than one thing, but as he nears orgasm it gets harder.

Seungyoon cries out again, and Minho takes that as he’s getting close too, until Seungyoon pushes at his chest, says, “Stop,” in a low voice, and then, again, “stop, stop.”

It’s as if a bucket of ice has dropped on Minho and he stops, his stomach turning to knots at the pained expression on Seungyoon’s face.

“You’re hurting—” Seungyoon says, then, softly, “get out of me.”

Minho freezes for a few seconds before he gets a hand around himself and pulls out carefully. “Seungyoon-ah,” he says, before he’s cut off by Seungyoon’s glare.

“You need to leave.”

Minho can’t figure out what he’s done wrong until he looks at Seungyoon’s body and the red marks covering him from Minho’s hands and teeth. “Seungyoon-ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Go,” Seungyoon says, and it’s a quiet command, but Minho feels the force of it push him off the bed and he stands on shaking legs, collects his clothes, and does as Seungyoon asked.

The expression on Seungyoon’s face doesn’t fade from Minho’s mind for a long time, lying on his bed, facing the wall, wiping at his eyes. The only thing he can think is that he would never have hurt Seungyoon on purpose, but—being caught up in the moment is no excuse. It’s of little comfort to him as his mind runs through the few weeks when Seungyoon refused to talk to him, how badly he fucked up then, and how badly he’s fucked up now.

—

Minho hangs around the next day, trying to apologize in small ways: making Seungyoon food and tea and buying him lattes, but it doesn’t mean anything. The way Seungyoon sees it, he’s just hoping to get back in Seungyoon’s good books. Seungyoon knows he’s hot, fuckable, and good in bed, so why would Minho want to give that up? If nothing else, Seungyoon is around when Jiho isn’t, and if Seungyoon was in Minho’s position, he’d think twice before giving up a sure thing.

Minho doesn’t really leave him alone, so when it’s eleven at night and neither of them are asleep, Minho’s there while Seungyoon’s trying to take a selca, and for the moment he’s taking it Seungyoon imagines that they’re how they used to be, and Minho is what he used to be to Seungyoon. A friend.

—

The steam from the shower fogs up the mirror but when he wipes it clean he sees what he refused to look at when he woke up. He’s covered in bruises and bite marks from his hips to his neck and he spends several long minutes just surveying the damage, twisting and stretching to see the coverage. It alarms him in a way that even his first few times with Jiho didn’t. He used to wear those bruises with pride, but this. This isn’t out of affection, but desperation, Minho not being able to control himself, or not wanting to. 

A high-necked shirt keeps him covered and no one asking questions about what they can’t see, and he avoids Minho’s eyes for the ride to the shoot location. He can’t hide it from the stylists, though, and while they don’t ask questions he feels the need to explain. 

“I fell off my skateboard,” he says, changing into the first outfit, flashing a grin that says, how could I be so stupid? 

Two of the stylists look at each other, while the other sorts through clothes, matching them to their model. Maybe the others have noticed the state of him but they don’t say anything and he doesn’t look at them. Minho’s already changed and is getting his solo pictures taken.

“Minho said you had an accident at rehearsal,” one of the stylists says. 

“Oh,” Seungyoon says, “yeah, I fell off my skateboard at rehearsal. They should really stop letting me ride that thing.” He feigns a laugh and takes the clothes that are offered to him.

He can’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day, Minho lying for him; it’s either to save his own skin or because he thinks Seungyoon needs help. It eats at him, Minho thinking he’s a charity case that can’t do anything for himself, and when the shoot is over and they’re out of the car and into the dorm, Seungyoon follows Minho into his bedroom as Minho’s folding his clothes and shuts the door behind him.

Minho glances up at him, and he has an expression on his face like he’s not sure whether he wants to run or not. Seungyoon undoes the buttons on his shirt, and he knows what this must look like, but he stands his ground.

“Look at this,” he says, quietly. Minho’s eyes search his body, but Seungyoon doesn’t give him any time to admire what he’s done, the mottled mess of red and blue and purple. “Do you think this is funny?”

“Seungyoon-ah,” Minho says, but Seungyoon cuts him off.

“I know it must be a lot of fun for you, fucking me whenever you and Jiho want, and trust me, it’s fun for me, too, but this? This is not fun. Lying to people about how I got these bruises, looking like I’ve been— _attacked_ , beaten up—that’s not fun.” He’s moved closer to Minho, still gesturing, his voice still low, and Minho seems to grow more anxious the closer Seungyoon gets, and Seungyoon thinks, good, he should be upset. “Did you not remember our schedule for the week, or did you think it would be funny to see me get embarrassed when I had to take my shirt off?” 

“No, neither of those things, I,” Minho says. He looks around as if he’ll find an excuse in the room, glancing down at the t-shirt in his hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You have to know, I would never hurt you on purpose.”

“But you did,” Seungyoon says. His body is sore, and when he thinks about the night before, about Minho pushing in too hard, too fast, his eyes start to prickle. “You did hurt me.” He doesn’t care that Minho has a performance tonight, that he’s going back on _Show Me The Money_ to prove to everyone what an amazing artist he is, because right now he looks small and afraid. 

“Seungyoon-ah, please.” It sounds so pitiful coming out of his mouth. “It’s always a bit rougher with Jiho and I, we—”

“Jiho,” Seungyoon says, cutting him off. “Right, Jiho.”

So there it is. Minho was thinking of Jiho, not Seungyoon. He’s not surprised. It’s clear to him, now that he’s looking for all the signs, that they want to be together and they don’t care about him. 

“I got carried away. I didn’t think.”

“Of course,” Seungyoon says, and they lapse into silence while Minho wipes his face with his wrists and Seungyoon lets his body hurt. Eventually he leaves and goes to his own room, and Minho does whatever he’s going to do, and Seungyoon spends hours listening to the sound of his own thoughts whirring like an exhaust fan running on fumes.

—

He’s not sure how long he spends sitting against the door with his head in his hands until the thought comes to him that he needs to tell Jiho about this. It seems that no matter what he does, he makes the situation worse. When he checks his watch, he still has half an hour before he needs to leave, and that’s enough time. If he doesn’t call Jiho now he never will, and Seungyoon will stay angry at Minho, and hurt, and nothing will be resolved. 

Jiho picks up on the third ring, sounding like he was just sleeping. “Hello.” There’s a fondness to his voice that Minho doesn’t deserve right now.

“I fucked up,” Minho says, and he hates the way his voice cracks and he gets choked up but if he’s going to cry over anyone, at least it’s Seungyoon. He tells Jiho what happened, and Jiho listens patiently to Minho’s half-formed sentences and inadequate explanation, and when he’s done Jiho simply says, “We can fix this.”

“How?”

“I’ll think of something. Go perform tonight, I’ll work on a plan. What are you doing tomorrow?”

Minho catches himself shaking his head. “UMF. Seungyoon’s coming, too.”

“Try and talk to him again, get him to understand that you didn’t mean to hurt him. He should understand, we went through the same thing when he and I first started dating. You just have to learn not to be in any way rough with him, because he can’t handle it.”

Minho makes noises of agreement as Jiho’s talking, but any assurance he got from Jiho’s confidence that everything is going to work out fades as soon as they hang up. He leaves the dorm in the clothes he wore out this morning and blames the redness of his eyes on his allergies and by the time he hits the stage there’s nothing in his mind except giving the best performance he can.

—

When Seungyoon wakes up the next morning, he feels better for reasons he can’t explain other than he just feels good. It’s easy to convince himself that what Minho said the day before is true: he didn’t mean to hurt Seungyoon, he would never do that on purpose, he just got carried away. He dresses and meets Minho by the door and Minho doesn’t say anything about last night, which Seungyoon is grateful for. After Minho smiles tentatively at him as he opens the door, it’s easy enough to smile back, and the day just gets easier.

Being around that many people at the festival, he loses himself in the crowds and the music and Minho’s arm around his shoulders, Minho braver now that Seungyoon is going easy on him, loosening up from the alcohol as the day wears on. They have to keep it professional, and Seungyoon’s not counting Minho’s drinks, so he’s surprised when Minho corners him coming out of the toilet and pulls him behind one of the food tents. He’s a bit drunk, tipsy maybe, his face rosy, and he’s sweating from the heat. It’s a good look on him.

“Seungyoon-ah,” he says. He hasn’t let go of Seungyoon’s hand and Seungyoon looks around, trying to spot anyone that might see. It’s still possible in this kind of crowd, even at night, when anyone could be looking at them. “I need to tell you—” he starts, but Seungyoon cuts him off.

“It’s okay, you’re sorry, I know.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

Seungyoon pulls his hand back. If this was a romance novel, this would be the part where Minho breaks up with him for his own good. “You’re really doing this now?” he asks, and it comes out harsh, much harsher than he meant it to, if he even meant it to come out at all. “Here? That’s really bad timing. You didn’t need to embarrass me.”

Minho’s brow furrows in confusion. “Embarrass? Please, will you listen to me?”

Seungyoon looks away. Despite how every fibre of his being tells him to, he doesn’t leave. “Yes.”

“I want things to be okay with you, with us. You’re not talking to me and that’s so frustrating, knowing you’re upset but not knowing how to help you, because you won’t talk to me.” 

Seungyoon would believe what he’s saying if he wasn’t staring at Seungyoon’s lips while he said it. He’s so angry at Minho, and Jiho, and himself, he doesn’t know how he’ll ever untangle himself from this situation without removing himself completely and burning all his bridges. “I can’t,” he says, looking away. He doesn’t add the reasons why—that Minho will have no use for him if Seungyoon doesn’t want to fuck him, that they won’t want to keep him around—and it sounds weak, but Minho will just have to trust him.

He looks up when Minho takes his hand again, is surprised when Minho leans in to kiss him softly, and Seungyoon tastes the acrid combination of tobacco and beer. As soon as he realises what Minho’s doing, Seungyoon pulls back to look around at the few people walking past. One of them whistles, and Minho steps back. 

“I’m sorry,” Minho says.

“I know,” Seungyoon says, and that’s it. They rejoin the festival and they don’t talk about it.

—

Two days later, Seungyoon’s sitting on the couch when Jiho walks in, and Jiho takes a seat next to him. He puts his arm around Seungyoon’s shoulders to pull him close, and Seungyoon lets himself be pulled.

“Minho told me about what happened. You’re okay now?”

Seungyoon says, “Yeah, I’m fine.” It’s easy to pretend with Jiho, who he rarely sees, than it is with Minho, who he lives with.

“Minho didn’t mean to hurt you, I know he’s told you that, but it’s true. Do you remember how it was when we first started having sex? We didn’t know how gentle we had to be, and it took us a few tries before we got it right.”

“I remember,” Seungyoon says. He rests his hand on Jiho’s thigh and his head on Jiho’s shoulder as Jiho strokes his hair. He misses this, being this close to Jiho, how easy it always is between them. Used to be. How easy it used to be. He smells good, and Seungyoon pushes his face into Jiho’s chest to get a clear memory for when this is all over and he won’t get to again. He’s counting the days.

“But when we did get it right, it was amazing. It still is. I just wanted to make you feel good. And I did, right?”

“You did,” Seungyoon says.

“That’s all Minho wants. He just doesn’t know how yet, we have to teach him. Can we show you how much you mean to us?” Jiho asks, a finger under Seungyoon’s chin to lift his head, and of course Seungyoon says yes, because he wants that more than he knows how to protect himself.

Seungyoon always looks beautiful, but there’s something vulnerable in his expression that Jiho loves. He had the same expression the first time they had sex, not scared so much as unguarded. Maybe he wasn’t as ready as he professed to be then, but Jiho trusts that he’s wise enough now to know everything he’s agreeing to.

He kisses Seungyoon gently, using the amount of tongue that Seungyoon likes, trying to be as soft as he can when he pulls Seungyoon up and leads him to Minho’s bedroom, but he doesn’t need to be. Minho’s sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for them and Seungyoon immediately pushes him onto his back and climbs into his lap, leaning over and kissing him more forcefully than he was just kissing Jiho.

“Hey, hey,” Jiho says, softly, smoothing a hand up Seungyoon’s shirt, across his back. “We can go slow, it’s okay. That’s the point.”

Seungyoon eases up but continues kissing Minho like he can’t get enough, pressing him back into the bed as if Minho couldn’t just lift him and put Seungyoon where he wants. Jiho comes over and tugs at Seungyoon’s shirt. When he lifts it off him, he sees the extent of the damage, the bruises in the shape of Minho’s hands still looking fresh and angry, and as awful as it looks, Jiho knows it will be the last time Seungyoon has to endure it. He tosses the shirt and Seungyoon goes back to kissing Minho.

When Minho puts his hands on Seungyoon’s body, Seungyoon hisses in pain, and he puts his hands in different places, on Seungyoon’s thighs which are bracketing Minho’s hips, on his hands which are holding him up, through his hair and messing it up. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ll get better, I promise.”

“I know,” Seungyoon says.

“You have to pay attention,” Jiho says, kneeling beside them on the bed. “You can’t just get caught up, otherwise you lose control. He feels good, doesn’t he? You really do.” He leans over to kiss Seungyoon’s shoulder before addressing Minho again. “But you have to ground yourself. Think about how he’s feeling, not just how his body feels.”

Seungyoon sits back on his heels. His underwear is tented and his body is flushed from arousal, his hair a mess, his cheeks rosy. Jiho leans over to kiss him on the mouth, tasting him and Minho. He’s focused on Minho a lot lately, because the novelty of getting to kiss him and hold him and fuck him hasn’t worn off, and maybe it never will, but tonight, he knows, should be about Seungyoon, and Jiho teaching Minho how to fuck Seungyoon.

“How do you want us?” Seungyoon asks, and Jiho grins. The question never gets old.

“On your back.”

Minho gathers Seungyoon up and flips their positions until Seungyoon’s underneath him. Before they start kissing again like Minho looks like he wants to, Jiho goes for Minho’s belt and gets his pants around his knees. At this point getting their clothes completely off is a lost cause, but Minho gets the hint and drags Seungyoon’s underwear down, tossing it aside, getting a hand around his cock. 

Jiho must have a compersion kink because watching them together is just as hot as fucking them, and when Minho slicks up his fingers to push them into Seungyoon, Jiho has to reach down to touch himself, already mostly hard. Jiho kneels on the bed behind Minho and leans over to bite at the knob of his spine. “Do you think he’s ready?” he asks, because Minho has to learn himself, he can’t wait on Jiho’s cue to know how Seungyoon’s body responds to him.

Minho pushes the palm of his free hand down the inside of Seungyoon’s thigh, coming to rest on his hip. He locks eyes with Seungyoon for a minute, just touching him, watching the minute changes in his expression as Minho twists his fingers, asks, “Are you ready?” and Seungyoon nods slowly. It’s not just that Seungyoon is beautiful, but he’s truly a good and honest person, and Minho wants Seungyoon to know how he feels, but more than that—Minho wants Seungyoon to love him. He pulls his fingers out gently as Jiho gets a slick hand around him and then guides him into Seungyoon, and it’s just as good as it always is, better that he’s going slower and can draw it out, better that he can be careful not to hurt Seungyoon.

He feels Jiho’s cock pushing at his entrance and lets himself relax as Jiho enters him. It’s almost too much, and it takes effort not to thrust forward as Jiho bottoms out; he keeps control by focusing on on Seungyoon and his expressions and the way he stares up at the ceiling and how his mouth moves even though he’s not saying anything. 

“Are you good?” Minho asks, and Seungyoon meets his eyes, and there’s something in his expression that Minho is too scared to look too deeply into right now. He’s got a slight sheen of sweat over his skin and looks radiant.

“Yeah,” he says, “please, I’m good.”

Jiho moves first, thrusting slowly into Minho, who thrusts into Seungyoon at Jiho’s urging, and Jiho starts up a rhythm that Minho follows. It’s slow and maddening and erotic in a way that fucking Seungyoon hard and fast could never be. Jiho’s hands touch Minho everywhere, but unlike what Minho was doing, these are light and fleeting touches, Jiho’s hands only staying in one place long enough to get Minho riled up before he moves onto somewhere else. 

“You don’t have to be rough for it to be good,” Jiho says, dicking into Minho with these long, drawn-out motions that are unlike what he’s done before. Minho gets it: Jiho can be rough with him in a way neither of them can be with Seungyoon, but this is good, it’s so good, and Minho is slowly losing his mind at the way Jiho undoes him, teetering on the edge of control, knowing, if he falls, Jiho will catch him.

—

Seungyoon sleeps through the plane ride and Minho feels like a creep for watching, and like an asshole for waking him when they taxi. They have so much to do over the next week that even the novelty of being in Japan doesn’t have much of an effect on him. Seungyoon rubs his eyes, his cheeks and lips puffy from sleep, and the urge to kiss him overwhelms how he knows Seungyoon is going through a rough time, and the hurt Minho feels that he’s not including him in what’s going on. Sometimes it’s hard to think straight when Seungyoon looks like that, when he yawns and turns to Minho with a sleepy look.

“We’re here,” he says, still looking like he’s going to fall back asleep at any second.

“Yeah, that’s generally what happens when you go somewhere. You get there.”

Seungyoon pushes his lips out in a pout, and he must know by now, he has to know what that does to Minho, how it makes his chest ache from longing, how it makes him want to be the kind of person Seungyoon loves, how it makes Minho want to pull Seungyoon into his lap by his belt loops and kiss him and kiss him and never stop kissing him. Instead, he helps Seungyoon with all his bags and makes sure he doesn’t trip going down the stairs to the tarmac.

By the time they get to the hotel, Seungyoon’s perked up, runs to the elevator so he can press the button, shimmies down the hallway to his and Minho’s room, exclaims at the view from how high up they are. It’s the most animated Seungyoon has been in what seems like months—what has been months. Minho can’t help thinking of things in the Before and After—before Jiho hurt Seungyoon, after they worked it out—before Seungyoon began to look at Jiho with an expression that made Minho’s chest ache, after Jiho told Minho he was in love with Seungyoon—and how simple things have changed the course of their history. They can’t go back to being the people they were two months ago. But maybe enough time has passed that they have healed.

He doesn’t mean to, but he falls asleep on the first bed he sits on and wakes up a few hours later. Seungyoon is gone, and the sun is lower in the sky, and Jinwoo is sitting on Seungyoon’s bed, watching Minho.

“What’s wrong?” Minho asks, wiping at the drool on his face, sitting up. “Where’s Seungyoon?”

“He’s gone out.”

Minho reaches for his phone and opens Instagram, scrolling through today’s posts. Seungyoon’s out by a river, in the sun, looking refreshed. Minho should be there with him, it’s what they do.

“Whatever you’re doing to him,” Jinwoo says, and there’s a note of warning in his voice, “you need to stop.”

Jinwoo’s expression when Minho looks up is fierce and confronting, and all the humor drains from the room.

“I’m not,” Minho starts, then, “what has he told you?”

“He didn’t need to tell me anything for me to notice that something is going on. He was covered in bruises, again. That sets off a lot of alarm bells.”

“Hyung, it’s not—I’m not hurting him on purpose. He’s my friend, I love him. I’m in—he’s my friend.”

Jinwoo doesn’t look convinced, and Minho probably wouldn’t be in his position, either. 

“Look, we had sex, and it got a bit rough, and you know how easily he bruises. That’s it.”

Jinwoo cocks an eyebrow. “Except, he’s been moody lately, for months, and it all happened around the time you and Jiho got together, which is confusing enough. And now you and Seungyoon are a thing? I’m definitely confused.”

“I know it seems confusing,” Minho says, trying to be diplomatic. The last thing he wants is a 50 kilo Jinwoo mad at him, cutting up his clothes and waking him up every forty minutes just to make him suffer. “But we’re together now, all three of us. No one is cheating on anyone.”

Jinwoo stares at him for a minute. “Are you in love?”

“I don’t—that’s a really loaded question. And I don’t know how they feel, so I guess, no. We’re not.”

“But you love Seungyoon. You just said.”

Minho barks out a self-deprecating laugh. “How can I not be in love with him? That’s the effect he has on people.”

Jinwoo lets out a harsh noise of frustration and flops back on the bed. “Then stop hurting him! If you can’t see that he’s in pain then you are really fucking dumb. I’m sorry, Minho-yah, but you are. Or.” Jinwoo sits up, and what he says next makes Minho’s stomach turn. “You just don’t fucking care, and that’s so much worse.”

“He won’t talk to me!” Minho catches himself yelling and takes a breath. “I keep trying to talk to him but he just—shrugs it off, leaves, tries to have sex with me. I can’t keep pushing him to talk about it without him thinking I’m pushing him away.”

“Maybe you need to push him away, for his own good.”

Minho nods because he’s been thinking the same thing. Lately he’s been feeling constantly on the verge of a breakdown. Without Seungyoon to laugh and explore new cities and compose with he feels like half of himself, torn between wanting to be with Seungyoon and wanting to give him his space, wanting to help him and trying to leave him alone like Seungyoon wants. 

He doesn’t know what to do, and he doesn’t know how to convey that to anyone, not Jinwoo, not even Jiho, and especially not Seungyoon.

—

As much as Minho thinks about Jinwoo’s words over the next week, he still finds himself in his own bed with the two of them, his dick in Seungyoon’s mouth while Jiho fucks Seungyoon from behind. He has the realisation somewhere in the midst tasting Seungyoon’s come in Jiho’s mouth as they kiss above him that he’s been too caught up in what Jiho wants and the newness of their relationship to know how to be with Seungyoon. Beyond that, he really thought it would be easy. He thought that since they get on so well as friends, it would be easy to bridge the gap to becoming lovers. Jiho and Seungyoon work so well together, but maybe that’s because they were never friends. Maybe Seungyoon and Minho were doomed from the start, and maybe he and Jiho are too.

As much as he tries to stay present, it’s easy to get caught up the sensations, Jiho teasing Minho’s tongue with his own, touching Minho’s arms and chest and shoulders, breaking off to say things like, “We could have been doing this sooner,” and, “Why did we take so long to get here?” It’s more than Minho can take, listening to that, letting himself be touched, welcoming it. Maybe they were meant to take this long, maybe they were never supposed to get together before now, not during _Show Me The Money_ , not when they were trainees, not during their underground days. Maybe now is the right time for them.

Beneath them, Seungyoon focuses on the feeling of Minho’s cock hitting the back of his throat and Jiho dicking into him instead of on the way he feels after the wonder of a small vacation that only served to highlight how bad a time he’s been having in his own home. It’s hard thinking about how he got into this situation, harder to think about how he can get out, and wondering why they even want him around anymore when he’s not even trying very hard and he’s awful to be around these days is answered when Minho comes down his throat. Oh right, he thinks, swallowing and using his hand to milk Minho’s cock, for my ass and mouth.

Jiho leaves soon after he’s come because they all have to get to the airport tomorrow and all time Jiho isn’t spending doing other things he’s composing. Seungyoon is tempted to get back to his studio himself but he knows Minho will just follow him, so he stays in Minho’s bed, letting Minho curl an arm around his stomach and slot in behind him until their knees touch and bury his nose in Seungyoon’s hair. It makes Seungyoon ache, thinking that Minho’s only doing it because Seungyoon reminds him of Jiho, not because he actually wants Seungyoon, not because he loves him and wants to be with him. If it was right, Seungyoon wouldn’t be feeling the way he does, pretending to sleep, pretending he doesn’t love the hint of smoke in Minho’s sweat, hoping Minho will roll off him soon so that Seungyoon can sneak back to his room.

—

Yu Tian is tall and handsome and distinguished and exactly the type of guy Seungyoon imagined himself ending up with, until he met Jiho. He has the kind of smile Seungyoon might have fallen in love with in another life, and the kind of presence on stage that Seungyoon gels with well. When they meet up to pick a song, the butterflies in Seungyoon’s stomach are just as real as their chemistry, and Seungyoon thinks about how easy it would be to pretend he isn’t currently sleeping with his two best friends and pull Yu Tian aside when no one is around and kiss him, but he doesn’t do that, because it’s hard enough pretending already.

The song speaks to him in a way that is both haunting and devastating, and he makes sure to sing it enough times that when he finally gets on stage he’s grown accustomed to how it pulls at this heart strings. He manages to hold off on the crying but he’s still raw enough that he almost excuses himself once he’s finally alone with Minho and Jiho, waiting in one of the dressing rooms to be told what to do. 

They gush about his arrangement and Seungyoon figures if he had a pet he’d have to keep them happy to make them stay, and he knows they appreciate good music. They start joking around as they always do when they’re together, and Seungyoon almost forgets himself, almost forgets how fucked everything is until Jiho mentions Yu Tian.

“He seemed pretty keen on you,” he says, with a smirk like he knows something Seungyoon doesn’t. Seungyoon’s stomach turns and he feels as though all the air has been sucked from the room. “Are you going to leave us for him?” He exchanges a look with Minho like it’s funny.

“What are you talking about,” Seungyoon says.

“Yu Tian,” Minho says, lifting his head from Jiho’s lap to look at him, “or I guess we can call him your boyfriend now. Should we be worried that you two are going to run away together?”

“If I catch you in bed together, I’ll be wounded,” Jiho says.

For a minute, Seungyoon is stunned. So that’s what they really think of him, that he’ll just fall into bed with anyone. Well, he did get together with them as soon as the opportunity presented itself—first Jiho the day after they’d met, then with Jiho and Minho the minute they’d gotten him alone—so he can’t really blame them for thinking he’s easy when the proof is in what he’s done. He wants to call his younger self and tell him to _watch out, not for the men who will break your heart, but for your own heart that deserves to be broken. Watch out for yourself and everything you’re capable of._

Despite how he has never felt less like laughing, Seungyoon fakes it, lets them embarrass him, and quietly slips away the first chance he gets, waiting until he shuts his own dressing room door behind him before collapsing against it. It’s in that moment, his head in his knees, wondering if he’s going to break down and cry here, a thousand kilometres from home, that he has an epiphany. They don’t have to treat him this way, and they don’t have to keep him around. He can’t stop having sex with them when it’s the only time he feels good anymore, but if they’re using him there’s no reason why he can’t use them. There’s no reason he has to pretend to like them anymore when they don’t respect him enough to leave him. 

It’s like giving up, and it’s the most free he’s felt in months.

—

Even though Jiho’s been in countless make up chairs before, it feels exciting in a new way this time, because they’re hosting, and because Kyung’s there, too. Jiho ribs Kyung for how much he loves getting pampered, and Kyung makes fun of Jiho for always smelling like sex these days.

“Did you work out that thing with Seungyoon?” Kyung asks, so casually it blindsides Jiho.

“What?” Kyung’s about to repeat the question before Jiho cuts him off. “Yeah, it’s fine, it was nothing. All good.”

Kyung gives him a look. “I know you’re lying but I suspect it’s more that you’re lying to yourself than to me. If there’s something going on you need to work it out.”

Jiho scoffs loudly enough that he startles the noona brushing his eyebrows. “You know I always work things out. When have I ever let anything bad slide?”

“When you’re really scared,” Kyung counters, and most of the time Jiho wishes Kyung didn’t know him so well, but not as badly as he does now. He starts ticking things off on his fingers as if he’s practiced this speech. “When you think you’re going to lose something you’ve worked really hard for. When you think you’re going to lose someone you love. When you almost left Block B after we debuted and you wouldn’t tell me that’s what you were thinking of doing.”

“Kyung,” Jiho says, meeting his gaze before the stylist tsks and he apologizes for moving. “That’s not what’s happening, I promise. Things are okay. And even if they weren’t okay, don’t you trust me to handle it?”

“I am absolutely certain you’re trying to manipulate me into letting this go, and I can tell it’s a losing battle, so, whatever. You know I’m here for you if you need to talk, and I’m here to pick up the pieces if it goes to shit.”

“You’re a good friend, Park Kyung,” Jiho says, and lapses into silence to let the stylists do their job.

—

Jiho’s almost dozing off listening to the beat of Minho’s heart through his chest as Minho talks about a program he saw on the Amazonian tribe whose male adulthood initiation requires a glove full of bullet ants while he runs his fingers through Jiho’s hair. Minho doesn’t seem to care that Jiho’s not listening, instead enjoying talking about something other than work and letting Jiho entangle their legs together even more and breathe in the scent of his skin.

“Hyung, do you want to do something?”

Jiho hums in response. Minho should know him better than that by now, that Jiho would rather sleep on his chest than leave his own apartment and the comforting glow of his laptop. The next song that comes on shuffle is slow and melodic, as lethargic as Jiho feels in the summer heat. He hasn’t bothered to turn on the air conditioning, instead enjoying the feeling of their combined perspiration welling up where his cheek touches Minho’s chest. 

“No,” Jiho says, finally. “I want to stay right here.”

“I’m bored,” Minho says. “Seungyoon and I haven’t done anything in so long I’ve forgotten how to have fun. We should go roller skating, I haven’t done that in a while.”

Jiho doesn’t move, his lips mooshed into Minho’s skin as he says, “How about we just stay here? If you’re bored I could entertain you.”

Mino lets out a laugh, as if he didn’t see that coming. Jiho hasn’t been able to get enough of him since they started this—this, whatever this is. Relationship. He wants Minho every which way, and has had him every chance he gets. He just—wants him. It’s only the heat that kept him from pulling off Minho’s clothes as soon as he walked in the door.

“Yeah?” Minho asks, his voice going low. “How are you going to entertain me?”

Jiho rolls his head until his chin is on Minho’s chest to look up at him, lets a smirk curl his lips. “I could kiss you. That could be fun.”

“Just kiss? Hyung, we’ve been kissing all day. I haven’t gone surfing in months.”

“Well,” Jiho says, sighing and sitting up, “I tried.” His cheek and chin are dripping just from the contact of Minho’s body, and he wipes them with the back of his hand. The few clothes he’s wearing are sticking to him—a tank top and a pair of shorts that are probably Taeil’s, leftover from the last time he stayed. Not being attached by the skin to Minho feels the tiniest bit cooler but he misses the contact already, until Minho follows him and sits up too, grabbing at Jiho’s shirt.

“You can try harder than that to convince me, can’t you?”

A smile comes over his expression that Jiho matches, feeling giddy just from the prospect of fooling around with Minho, high off the dopamine and oxytocin pulsing through his brain. It must be the honeymoon period. After knowing each other for most of a decade, it’s about time. 

Minho’s smile falters as he looks in Jiho’s eyes. “Kiss me,” he says, and Jiho does, because more than anything he wants Minho to stay. The kiss turns heated, Minho sucking on Jiho’s tongue and fisting a hand in the back of his hair, as if he wants Jiho to stay, too. Jiho attempts to pull Minho into his lap before Minho stops him, pushing him back into the couch cushions. “Wait,” Minho says, in the voice he uses when he has great ideas. He stands and then gets to his knees in between Jiho’s just as quickly, running his palms up Jiho’s legs and looking up at him through his eyelashes.

When he goes for Jiho’s shorts, Jiho says, “What, you’re not going to make me beg?”

“Why do you have to be such a shit?” Minho asks, and Jiho laughs at his exasperation. “I’m just about to blow you.”

“Minho-yah,” Jiho says, letting his voice drop, grow desperate, only mostly joking, “jebal, suck me, I want you to,” almost laughing at the way Minho’s ear turn red and he squirms as though Jiho’s tickling him.

“Stop,” he says, not sounding very sure of himself. “Hyung—”

“Will you, please?” Jiho asks, and it’s so easy to turn Minho on, it’s become Jiho’s favorite game. “Put your mouth on me, suck me, I want it so bad, I want to feel you—”

“Okay! I get it.” Minho tugs at Jiho’s shorts until Jiho lifts himself up for him to get them off. His cock springs free and Minho immediately curls a hand around him, leans forward to suckle at the head of Jiho’s dick as soon as his bare ass touches the couch. Jiho groans at the contact and Minho takes that as the encouragement it is and sinks lower on Jiho’s cock, taking all of him in easily until he buries his nose in Jiho’s pubic hair. 

Jiho runs his hand through Minho’s hair, teasing a finger down his cheek. “You are so special to me,” he says, trying to convey just how much through his words, “my most treasured dongsaeng.”

Minho’s eyes soften and he makes a show of it, bobbing up and down, pulling back to nurse on the tip until Jiho begs Minho to make him come, without joking this time, and when Minho hollows his cheeks and sucks properly Jiho lets himself go, coming into Minho’s warm, inviting mouth.

Minho cleans him up by licking his cock all over and swallowing the last drops of Jiho’s release until Jiho grows soft and pulls Minho up into his lap. He doesn’t mind kissing Minho; his desire to have Minho is more of a turn on than the way tasting his own comes turns him off, so they kiss lazily and sweetly, not as hurried as it was before even though Minho is hard and Jiho feels it when he reaches between them. Minho’s cock is so big and beautiful it’s a shame Jiho’s neglected it until now, his mouth watering as he pulls it out of Minho’s shorts, feels the weight and heft of it in his hand, smears the precome gathering at the tip with his thumb while Minho bucks up at the touch. 

“Fuck, hyung, don’t play with it,” he says, and Jiho smirks up at him. “Don’t tease me.” He was already hard from blowing Jiho, but as Jiho starts to jack him slowly Minho grows harder, redder, purpling at the head, the veins in his cock protruding like the ones in his arms, the ones Jiho wants to lick. 

“That’s all I want to do.” He pulls on Minho’s hoodie until Minho leans down and kisses him again. Minho’s mouth feels just as good on Jiho’s as it does on Jiho’s cock, and he wants to crawl inside, in the most carnal way, wants to be devoured. 

He pulls Minho in closer by the thighs before he tips him onto his back and Minho falls with an _oomph_ back onto the couch, into the same position he was in before he got to his knees. Jiho moves down the couch until he’s level with Minho’s cock, swallowing him down before Minho has time to catch his breath. 

“Fuck, _fuck_ , that feels so good,” Minho says, as Jiho takes him deeper. It’s always been one of Jiho’s favorite things to do; he hates his own taste but he loves the taste of everyone else, of Minho who is having trouble not bucking his hips up and fucking Jiho’s face. Minho is so big and thick he fills Jiho’s mouth in a way that is completely satisfying and more-ish at the same time, hitting the back of Jiho’s throat easily. Jiho marvels at getting to do this now, after years of repressing the desire to the point that he no longer consciously thought about it and it made itself obvious in other ways. He still feels awful for using Minho and Seungyoon both, for the game he was playing that Minho never asked to be a part of, but he hopes he’s making it up to both of them now, the best way he can.

Minho’s breathing grows labored the closer he nears orgasm, and Jiho keeps up the steady pace of sinking down and bobbing back up, teasing Minho’s slit with his tongue, hollowing his cheeks to create the kind of friction that has Minho coming into his mouth. He tastes tangy and sweet at the same time and Jiho opens his mouth to let Minho’s come drip down his still-hard cock, dribbling the rest of it onto him and then licking it back up.

When he looks up, Minho’s biting into his fist, his chest rising rapidly, eyes still squeezed shut. “Hey,” Jiho says, “you don’t have to hold back with me. Be as loud as you want.”

Minho finally opens his eyes and looks down at Jiho. By this time he’s flaccid and Jiho tucks him back in, reaching down to do the same for himself.

“I was afraid the neighbors might hear and know you have a guy over.”

“Fuck them,” Jiho says, “they never recycle properly anyway. I don’t care what they think.”

A soft smile spreads over Minho’s face and reaches his eyes, a smile that mirrors how unbearably fond Jiho is of him, before it falters. Jiho sits up, because he can tell when Minho is about to say something important.

“Hyung, we’re okay, right?” Minho asks. “What we’re doing is okay? The three of us, I mean. It’s not wrong?”

Jiho takes his time answering, playing with the hem of Minho’s hoodie. “If we’re not hurting anyone, no one can tell us what we’re doing is wrong.”

“What if we are hurting someone?”

“Who?”

 

“Seungyoonie.”

“Yoonie’s fine. If he didn’t want to be with us, he wouldn’t be.”

“Can you say that for sure?”

Jiho opens his mouth but can’t think of the right to say. He looks away, looks at the contents of his apartment and the album art on the walls and the awards on the shelves, things that mean little without the people he loves. “I have to believe Yoonie is doing the best he can for himself and for us. He’s an adult, I owe him thinking the best of him, and he’d hate me if I thought he was incapable of making his own decisions.”

They lapse into comfortable silence for a minute, but Jiho can tell by the way Minho bites his lip that there’s more he wants to say. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Jiho says, and Minho nods.

“Thanks, hyung.” He takes the hand that’s resting on his thigh, intertwining their fingers. “I’m not sure what God wants for me, but this—being with you, here, now—it feels right. It feels like where I’m supposed to be.”

Jiho squeezes his fingers. “Yeah,” he says. “Me, too.”

—

Minho misses when being with Seungyoon didn’t hurt so much. Seungyoon smiles while they’re in Nagoya, every time he doesn’t know Minho is looking, and it breaks Minho’s heart to know it’s not directed at him, that it doesn’t happen when they’re alone.

When they get back to Seoul, Seungyoon loses whatever bit of happiness he’d had when he was in Japan and up until the point Seungyoon turns around on his bed and pulls his underwear down over the curve of his ass, not even looking at Minho as he does, Minho is determined to talk to him.

“Just fuck me,” Seungyoon says, and Minho has never been good at saying no to him, “like I know you want to,” and it’s mechanical and devoid of feeling despite how awful Minho feels, and when he reaches around to stroke Seungyoon, he’s not even hard. “It doesn’t matter,” Seungyoon says, when Minho points it out, so at Seungyoon’s urging Minho keeps going until he finishes, and waits until he gets back to the studio to chainsmoke four cigarettes, the haze curling around him as if it can mask his mistakes, or shield him from them. 

—

All of the things he’s felt good about before all this started have become smoke behind glass, unreachable and intangible, anyway. He’s always been a terrible drinker but it doesn’t hit him just how bad until he’s been drinking for six hours at a club he can’t remember the name of in the company of people he wouldn’t be caught seen with in daylight, if they even venture out into daylight. After losing his phone and his wallet in the span of twenty minutes, he ends up calling Minho from someone else’s phone to come get him, holding it up for her to shout directions into while Seungyoon laughs, because it’s funny that Minho is still the first person he would call, and it’s funny that Minho is still coming to get him. He doesn’t remember leaving the club to sit on the ground outside but that’s how Minho finds him, looking upset—at what, Seungyoon doesn’t ask. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Minho says, as Seungyoon’s head lolls against the window of the cab, “so you can tell me what’s going on, if you like.”

“I don’t care if you’re mad,” Seungyoon says, laughing again. “I really don’t.” His head has already started to pound and he feels nauseated, barely making it out of the cab before he vomits in a bush. The ground feels like an okay place to lie down while Minho pays the cab driver, but eventually he pushes himself to his feet with Minho’s help, gets into the building with Minho’s help, gets inside with the same feeling of Minho’s hands on him that he’s come to associate with the best orgasms of his life, and also the worst he’s ever felt about himself. Even though he probably couldn’t get hard even if he was sober, he wants Minho inside him tonight. 

“Are you going to be sick again?” Minho asks, leading Seungyoon to his bedroom with a hand on his arm to keep him from bumping into the walls and door jambs. 

“Well, I don’t feel great,” Seungyoon says. He starts tugging off his own clothes, and when that proves too difficult a task says, “I’ve got vomit on me,” so that Minho will help.

“Here.” Minho unbuttons Seungyoon’s shirt and lets it fall to the floor while Seungyoon sways on the spot before he does the same for Seungyoon’s pants. Seungyoon watches as Minho empties the wastebin and sets it up next to the bed.

“Thanks.” Seungyoon sits down heavily, bouncing a little on the mattress. It’s difficult to focus on anything, even on more than Minho’s presence in the room. He’s a real person, too, Seungyoon thinks, before he tugs Minho in by the belt loops and pulls him down onto the bed. 

“Seungyoon-ah,” Minho says, but Seungyoon shuts him up with a kiss, pulling Minho’s hands onto his body so that he’ll get the hint. Minho kisses back until Seungyoon pushes Minho’s hand under the waistband of his underwear and he pulls back. “Seungyoon-ah, I can’t, I can’t do this, you’re too drunk. Nothing is going to happen.”

“It’s not taking advantage if I want you to,” Seungyoon says, trying to kiss Minho again, offering himself up. “Just pretend I’m him, then.”

“Pretend you’re who?” Minho asks, holding Seungyoon’s shoulders to keep him still. Their gazes meet for several seconds before Seungyoon tries to kiss him again to break the tension. Minho holds him back because Minho doesn’t love him the way he loves Minho—with everything he has, so much that when he’s drunk Minho’s the first person he thinks of. Even now, he’s always been so good, it would be hard to imagine him using Seungyoon the way he did on purpose; most likely he just didn’t consider Seungyoon at all.

“I know you only want to fuck me because I look like Jiho,” Seungyoon says, before he rolls over and shoves his head in the wastebasket to vomit again. Minho makes a noise behind him, rubs his back as Seungyoon spits it all out. The smell of his sick is thick in the air, and his throat burns and head spins and back feels cold where Minho touches him. He knows he should sleep before he makes any worse decisions, but the words start to come up with the alcohol he drank and he can’t help himself. “He doesn’t love me anymore, not like he used to. Not like he loves you. I know you don’t want me like you want him, and if you don’t, if you really don’t—” He sits up, not looking at Minho and talking to the darkness more than him. “—then you’ll stop stringing me along, you’ll cut me loose. You owe that to me, as my friend.” 

“Seungyoon,” Minho says, and his voice is more of a hush than anything else, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Seungyoon shakes his head, which makes everything worse, and he drops back onto the bed to lie down beside Minho. They’re not touching anymore; they’re not even looking at each other. “The least you could do is not lie to me,” Seungyoon says. He rolls over onto his side, away from Minho, closer to the wastebasket, one thought making itself clear in the miasma of his mind: maybe they didn’t ruin him. Maybe he was already ruined.

“Please talk to me,” Minho says, and to Seungyoon’s drunk ears it sounds like he’s on the verge of a sob, “tell me what I did wrong,” but by that time Seungyoon is already drifting off to the sound of the white noise in his head.

—

The phone call he gets from Minho at 7:34 in the morning confirms the fears Jiho has been desperately holding at bay. Seungyoon is unhappy. Things aren’t right. Things haven’t been right for a while now, since long before he involved Minho. He listens with a heart growing heavier to Minho explaining what happened the night before, Seungyoon getting drunk, helping him home, stopping him from doing something he would regret, something Minho didn’t want to do, staying with him to make sure he didn’t vomit and choke in his sleep. It pours out of him, not just the night before, but everything that’s happened over the past three months, Seungyoon becoming distant—which Minho put down to him not wanting to be with Minho the way he’s with Jiho—the cold, mechanical way they fucked the last time, Minho’s insecurities about not being good enough for Seungyoon or Jiho and ruining their relationship, not knowing how to talk to them, not knowing how to be around Seungyoon, wanting Seungyoon so badly he did anything he asked, wanting it even when it felt wrong. 

While Jiho listens in silence as Minho gets it all out, he comes up with a plan, and when Minho finally hangs up, Jiho texts Seungyoon to come over. The reply comes a couple hours later, presumably when Seungyoon has just awoken and begun to nurse his hangover—Jiho chooses to believe this instead of the possibility that Seungyoon needed time to decide whether he would bother with Jiho anymore. He waits for the rest of the day to pass in an anxious stasis, too distracted to work, eventually opting to dust his apartment just for something to do. He doesn’t know why, but he changes into something presentable, a button-down and jeans without rips in them, and waits another hour with the television on to drown out the silence and emptiness of his apartment for Seungyoon to show, turning it off as soon as he hears the knock at the door.

Whatever he’s expecting, it’s not opening the door to find Seungyoon with a smile on his face. Then again, Seungyoon’s always been disturbingly good at pretending everything is fine, even on the verge of a stress-induced breakdown, so Jiho really shouldn’t be surprised. He has a bottle of wine in his hand and as he kisses Jiho as he walks through the door, Jiho catches a whiff of his cologne, takes in the sight of him—looking like he dressed up, too.

“Can you come into the living room with me?” Jiho asks, and when Seungyoon nods he leads the way, holding Seungyoon’s hand and sitting him down on the couch. Once they’re there, Jiho doesn’t know how to start. “We need to talk,” he says, and stops.

Seungyoon glances away, his expression unreadable. “So you really are breaking up with me,” he says, with a note of finality in his voice, as if he expected this all along.

“ _No_ ,” Jiho says immediately, “Yoon-ah, I would never, please, just listen to me.” Seungyoon turns his gaze back to Jiho, and he looks so sad all of a sudden; it breaks Jiho’s heart to think he’s the cause of it. “Minho told me what happened last night—”

“Hyung, I don’t even remember last night.”

“That’s worrying enough, that you were drinking so much you don’t remember what happened. The things you said—Yoon-ah, I don’t want you to feel that way, that we don’t want you, that we should cut ties with you—you’re not a burden to us.”

Seungyoon doesn’t say anything but his eyes grow cold, and Jiho can tell he’s losing him.

“We just want you to be okay.”

“I’ll be okay,” Seungyoon says, but he doesn’t elaborate. “You want me to feel good?”

“Of course,” Jiho says. He feels too big for his own bones, too much for the space, too much for Seungyoon who’s looking at him like he doesn’t understand Jiho at all.

“Then will you just kiss me?” Seungyoon asks, and Jiho says yes, because Seungyoon has this way of making you give him what he wants, and maybe if he gets what he wants he won’t leave Jiho. Seungyoon throws his leg over him and climbs into his lap, kissing him like Jiho is the air he needs to breathe. 

“Don’t leave, okay?” Jiho says, whispering it into Seungyoon’s mouth. “I don’t know what I’d do if you left, I need you to stay with me.”

Seungyoon sighs and presses his body against Jiho’s, hands scrabbling at Jiho’s shoulders as if he can’t hold on properly, and Jiho can feel himself slipping away, grabs on tighter to Seungyoon’s hips despite how delicate he is, trying to convey just how much he needs him. 

“Will you fuck me?” Seungyoon asks, and Jiho says, yes, yes, of course, anything, “Fuck me like you do Minho.”

Jiho pulls away, searching Seungyoon’s face, holding him back as he tries to kiss Jiho’s jawline. “Yoon-ah, you know I can’t do that. I—I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You just said you want me to feel good,” Seungyoon says, his expression clouding over.

“We can’t,” Jiho says, trying to sound final. “We can’t fuck like me and Minho do, because it would hurt you.”

“But I want to.” He sounds like a petulant child before he changes tack, and his voice grows desperate. “I want to know, please just let me have that, let me know what it feels like to be him, can you—just give me a chance.”

Jiho doesn’t know how he finds the strength to hold Seungyoon still, but he does, says, “You can’t ask me to do that, Yoon-ah, please.”

“Hyung, I’m begging.” Seungyoon’s fingernails dig into Jiho’s chest and it seems to take all of his energy not to collapse forward. 

“No,” Jiho says.

Anger flashes over Seungyoon’s expression and Jiho reels from the emotional whiplash, wonders how they got here from where the day started. “Why not? You get to fuck Minho however you want, as rough as you want, but I’m too precious? You can’t break me. The last three months have proven that.”

“You’re not going to make me change my mind about this,” Jiho says. He hasn’t taken his hands off Seungyoon’s hips, because if Seungyoon leaves now, they might not be able to fix whatever is going on between them.

“Give me a reason,” Seungyoon says, spitting the words out quietly.

“Because you’re not Minho,” Jiho says, meaning, you’re not Minho, you’re _Seungyoon_ , but the words don’t come out right. Seungyoon’s expression clouds over immediately and he pushes himself off Jiho, reaches the door while Jiho’s still grabbing for air. “Kang Seungyoon, wait,” he says, catching up to him as he grabs his shoes. As he grasps Seungyoon’s arm, Seungyoon pushes him away, and he stumbles back from the force of it.

“Don’t,” Seungyoon says, in a voice Jiho’s never heard before, “you don’t get to touch me anymore. I’m sick of you two using me. I’m sick of only feeling good during sex.” His voice is low and dangerous, his face contorted in anger, shocking Jiho cold. “I can’t keep destroying myself over what we had, hoping you’ll love me again, hoping that everything we shared wasn’t a precursor to you getting with Minho, because it’s no use. Even if what we had was real then, it’s not anymore, and we have to—” His voice breaks and he turns away. “—we have to stop this. I can’t handle it anymore, hyung, I just can’t.”

“Please,” Jiho says, and he’s not above begging, not at a time like this, not for Seungyoon, “let’s talk about this, don’t go.”

Seungyoon’s eyes are shining when he meets Jiho’s gaze, but his tone is so cold when he says, “I’m done,” that Jiho can’t move, can’t stop him from leaving, can’t chase him out the door and down the street, can’t bring him back. He collapses against the wall, staring out the open door.

He stays like that for some time, feeling numb to the voice in his head that tells him he knew this was coming, how can he be surprised when he brought this on himself? The sun has begun to set by the time Minho walks through the door and sits next to Jiho on the floor.

Eventually Jiho breaks the silence. “What did he say?”

“He told me, ‘You can have him’, but closed the door in my face before I could ask him what he meant. And then I came here.”

“Thank you.” 

Minho takes Jiho’s hand, and his grip is warm and steady, a contrast to the way Jiho’s hands are still shaking. 

“This can’t be it,” Jiho says, mostly to himself. “I don’t want to let him go like this, angry at me, hurt, thinking I don’t love him. I couldn’t bear to live like that.”

“What do you want to do?”

Jiho runs his hand through his hair, still holding onto Minho’s with the other. “Talk to him, really talk. Explain. The both of us, we can explain ourselves. Tell him how much he means to us, because we haven’t done that, and that’s why he thinks we were using him. That’s what he said to me.” Jiho’s voice breaks on the next statement. “He thinks we were using him. We have to tell him—”

“We will, hyung.” Minho’s voice is thick and when he kisses the back of Jiho’s hand he can feel the wetness of his cheeks. 

“I love him, I’ve loved him since I met him.”

“I know.”

Jiho turns and catches Minho’s gaze. “You, too, you know that, right? I love you, too.”

Minho’s eyebrows lift and he looks taken aback for all of eight seconds before he says, “I love you, too,” and he sounds so unguarded, so much like himself. It lifts a weight off Jiho’s chest he didn’t know was there, keeping that in like a secret he refused to admit to himself, as if keeping it hidden meant it couldn’t hurt him if Minho didn’t love him back. 

“We’re going to Kobe for four days,” Minho says. “We won’t be back until Monday.”

“After that, then. Give him a few days to collect himself.”

“Okay, if you think that’s best.” Minho leans his head on Jiho’s shoulder and they sit like that for a while, watching as the sunlight dies and makes shadows along the floor. Eventually Minho has to leave, but he stays as long as he can, and even though they don’t say much, Jiho appreciates him being there. When he tells Minho that, Minho kisses him, soft and sweet, like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be.

—

Jhonny seems to be waiting for Seungyoon and as soon as he walks into the dorm she winds her way around his feet, headbutting him until he picks her up and carries her to the living room, called to the thought of mind-numbing television to put him to sleep. He stops in his tracks once he gets there and finds Minho and Jiho sitting on the couch, both of them looking up at him. The tv isn’t on and they’re not touching; they don’t look like they’ve even been talking.

“Where’s everyone else?” Seungyoon asks. Jhonny nestles further into his arms and he holds her to his chest; the defense mechanisms he’s built up to protect himself from them haven’t been working so far, and maybe she can protect him.

“We asked them if we could have the dorm to ourselves,” Minho says.

“Well, make the most of it.” He turns around to leave before Jiho calls out.

“It’s so we can talk. The three of us.”

“Okay.” Seungyoon stands still, watching them for a few seconds. It’s not what he expected, a civil conversation. Maybe he did before the last time he saw Jiho, but he thought he’d made his point pretty clear. He’s not opposed to it; once they’ve said what they need to say he can be done with them, and them with him. Whatever happens after that will happen. “So talk.” He takes a seat on the couch, far enough away from them so it doesn’t look like he’s giving in.

“I’m sorry,” Jiho says, but what follows is not the _but I don’t want to be with you anymore_ Seungyoon was waiting to hear. “For betraying your trust. For making you think I didn’t care about you, that our relationship was just a game to me. It’s not that—it’s not a game. It’s not just me wasting time with you until I could get with Minho. It’s not just a relationship to me, we were—we are in love. Yoon-ah, I care about you so much, and I always have, since the first time I saw you in daylight. I watched you lick mulberry juice off your fingers while you talked about how it felt to be on stage and I knew I needed you to be in my life.” His voice stays steady throughout his speech, and Seungyoon wonders if he practiced it in the days leading up to this moment, if he had it all prepared. He continues, “I’m sorry for thinking sex could make up for hurting you, and I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you before bringing Minho into it. I was scared. I knew our relationship was—it wasn’t as strong as it used to be, we weren’t seeing each other as much, and I was—acting out, because I knew you were slipping away from me. But I wanted desperately to fix it. I just didn’t do the one thing that would’ve helped.”

Seungyoon glances at Minho, who’s pinching the bridge of his nose trying to hold back tears. Seungyoon is glad that he doesn’t cry as easily as Minho does, because his composure is all he has right now. Listening to Jiho’s speech makes him feel raw and vulnerable, as if Jiho is reaching inside Seungyoon and pulling out the worst parts of him to put on display.

“I didn’t realise until very recently how much I care for Minho, and what I was doing—he never asked to be a part of it, so please don’t blame him.”

“You love him, then,” Seungyoon says. He looks Jiho in the face as Jiho nods, and Seungyoon shouldn’t feel relieved to have the thing he was dreading exposed like a dirty secret.

“I do love Minho. I’ve always loved him, and do you know how I know that? Because, I realized, when I’m with him, I feel the same way I do when I’m with you.”

Seungyoon looks away, feeling embarrassed. After all this time of being in love with both of them, it never occurred to him that Jiho might be, too. That maybe Jiho’s feelings for Minho didn’t cancel out his feelings for Seungyoon. He comes close to getting up then and leaving, but he doesn’t. Jhonny nestles into his chest and starts purring, a loud sound in the sudden quiet of the room.

“It’s the same for me,” Minho says. “Do you know how hard it is to _not_ be in love with you? I’ve tried for years. Even before you and Jiho started dating, I could never make a move because I knew you didn’t feel the same way about me, and then it became a lost cause. The way you were around Jiho—I could never make you that happy. I still can’t.”

In the midst of this, Seungyoon has lost the ability to speak, to reassure Minho that he was happy, for a long time. Being in Winner has been the happiest years of Seungyoon’s life, and Minho was a big part of that. He doesn’t say how scared he was to tell Minho how he felt, still feels, how once he started dating Jiho he resigned himself to not being able to be with Minho. He just can’t get the words out.

“I really tried to keep Jiho away from you,” Minho says, looking down at his hands and smiling, “because I was afraid that Jiho would break your heart. At least, that’s what I told myself. The real reason was because I was afraid you would like him and not me. And then that ended up happening anyway.”

“Minho cares about you,” Jiho says, “he loves you. I love you. We didn’t mean to hurt you. Everything that’s happened over the past three months—I’m the one to blame, for not making you feel wanted, for treating you that way, for making you feel like you deserved to be treated that way. But we were never using you, please believe that. Not on purpose. You’re not an object to us, you’re a person, and I’m sorry for not realizing that you felt the way you did. All I can say is that I was scared to think you were unhappy, because it meant I would lose you. I’ve been taking you for granted for a while now.”

Seungyoon’s stares out the window while Jiho talks, feeling a lot of emotions without letting any of them rise to the surface. Jiho’s cowardice hardly seems like a good enough excuse, but Seungyoon is a coward, too. He also let his fear of them leaving him dictate his actions, even when it hurt him. He just did it in a different way.

“You mean so much to me,” Jiho continues, and his voice starts to sound tight, but he’s not crying. “I used to flit from relationship to relationship until you came along, because I’d never found anyone who made me feel even close to how I felt about Minho. You helped me to understand what love, true love, really is, and I’m so grateful to you. Even if you don’t want to be with us, with me, anymore, I will always be grateful to you.”

When Seungyoon looks back at them, tears are streaming down Minho’s face. Seungyoon hasn’t seen him cry this openly since the night they ceased to be Team A and became Winner. Seungyoon feels close to it, his eyes prickling, his chest tight, but he holds it in.

“I don’t know if there’s anything else I can say,” Jiho says, “if there’s anything you want me to explain. I’m going to stop assuming I know how you feel, but I suspect you cared about us too, even if you don’t anymore, and that’s why you held on. Minho?” Jiho and Seungyoon look at him, and he shakes his head. “Okay, we’ll leave you alone now, if that’s what you want. Just know, we’re here. We’re not going anywhere.”

Seungyoon looks down at Jhonny so he doesn’t have to watch them leave, but he sees them hold hands out of the corner of his vision before they disappear out the door, and Seungyoon aches in a new way. To everything else, he’s numb.

—

 

“You told me he was straight,” Jiho says, laughing hard enough that he has to lean back in Minho’s desk chair.

“Did I?” Minho says, playing dumb. 

“You really did. I asked you if he was into guys and you said, ‘Hyung, he’s the straightest guy I know’.” 

“I don’t remember that,” Minho lies, and Jiho laughs harder. They’ve been in Minho’s studio for hours now, killing time while Seungyoon is upstairs, neither of them talking about the possibility that he doesn’t want anything to do with them anymore, that they’ve fucked up for good this time, that the damage they did was irreparable. 

“As it turns out, he is not straight,” Jiho says.

“Are you sure?” Minho asks, and Jiho shoves him. “I thought you were going to break his heart.”

“Everyone did,” Jiho says, not laughing this time. 

“I used to think, ‘I wish he knew that Jiho didn’t care about him so he would pick me’, until I realised how much you loved him and knew him better than I did.”

Jiho’s face falls and his voice is small when he asks, “You really thought I didn’t care about him?”

“I guess, at first. That’s why I was so protective. You didn’t know him, but you wanted to sleep with him—you can’t pretend you didn’t—and you wouldn’t let up until you met him. And I tried so hard to keep you away from him because—”

“Because you loved him.”

“Yeah.”

“I get it.”

“I’m not proud of myself.”

Jiho leans forward and grasps Minho’s thigh. “It’s okay. You did what you thought was right.”

Minho doesn’t come back with how he’s been doing things he thought were right for Seungyoon this whole time, and how badly that’s turned out.

“I cried when you left,” Jiho says, and Minho doesn’t need to ask what he’s talking about. He just knows. “I broke down in the practice room, that shitty practice room with the one flickering light. You were right to leave, I knew it even then, but, fuck, it nearly broke me. I read the note you left me and I cried for hours, thinking how you wouldn’t be with us anymore. It didn’t feel right, not having you there. Even when we were debuting, I kept thinking about how you should’ve been there with us. But after everything we went through, I’m so glad you didn’t have to go through that. And it’s turned out well, because we’re together, now. Again.”

Minho hasn’t stopped feeling raw since they were in the dorm, and he struggles not to cry again. Jiho looks close to it, too. 

“I wrote a song about it,” Jiho admits. “Taeil’s solo, ‘It Was Love’. Looking back on it now, it was so obvious I wrote it about you. I kept imagining what it would be like to be in a relationship where the other person had to leave, only realising later that it was more than just a relationship. I even thought at the time, if we were in a relationship, would that have made you stay?” Jiho ducks his head, but his voice is strained enough that Minho can hear it. “I think I repressed that thought, because it’s just coming back to me now.” He looks up again and the wetness of his eyes is enough to set Minho off again. “I think I knew, even then. I knew.”

“So did I,” Minho says. He lets his tears fall into his lap, disregarding any futile attempt to stop them. “I knew.”

Jiho takes Minho’s hands, bare of his trademark rings; he was in too much of a hurry to put them on this morning, too distracted. “I’m sorry I took so long to realize,” he says, and Minho nods. He’s sorry, too. He’s about to say so when Jiho glances to his right and Minho turns around to find Seungyoon standing in the doorway. 

He’s red-eyed but he stands tall when he asks, “Are you ready to do this for real?”

“Yes,” Jiho says, still holding onto Minho’s hands.

“And you?”

Minho nods quickly. “I’m ready.”

“Good.” Seungyoon lets out a breath and his gaze grows soft. “Because I want to do this, the three of us. I know it’s going to be even harder than a two-person relationship, not being able to tell anyone except the people closest to us. A lot of people won’t understand. Can you deal with that?”

Minho nods again. “My parents still don’t understand what being an idol is, and I’ve been hiding at least half my relationships from the rest of the world my whole life, so. I can deal with it.”

“It’s not going to be like your other relationships,” Jiho says, chiding him.

“Because there’s three of us, I know.”

“No,” Seungyoon says, and he looks at Minho so fondly Minho feels it through his whole body, “because we’re in love.”

“Yeah?” 

When he looks back on this moment later he’ll reflect on how he thought Jiho and Seungyoon would get back together and that they wouldn’t want him, that things would return to normal, and know how foolish he was. Even though they’re not touching, Minho feels every place Seungyoon’s put his hands, all of the places Jiho isn’t touching now, as if he’s been branded by them, in this, one of the moments that defines them: the after, and the before.

—

“How does it go again?”

He played the chords, strumming softly with his steady hands, while Jiho tapped out the rhythm on his thigh. It was difficult to play guitar with his legs in Jiho’s lap and his fingers stiff from the cold, but reclining back against the arm of the couch made it easier and he began to play properly while Jiho sang. 

They made it through half of the song before Minho appeared in the living room, wiping sleep from his eyes, looking like they’d disturbed him but that he wasn’t really mad about it. He’d remarked to Seungyoon that he was glad Jiho had started to come around more, and that he was worried Jiho would be sick of him after _Show Me The Money_ , even if Jiho was there to see Seungyoon. It made Seungyoon feel nice that a byproduct of dating Jiho was that his friendship with Minho grew stronger.

“Is that a new song?” Minho asked, yawning halfway through.

“Yeah, wanna hear?”

Minho nodded and sat down by Seungyoon’s feet as Jiho sang the first verse, his voice firm and pleasant to listen to. Seungyoon tried to encourage him to sing more without pushing him; it detracted from his hip hop, bad boy image which he both loathed and cultivated in equal measure, but his voice was really lovely, and Seungyoon wanted to collaborate with him if they ever had the chance. 

“Ah, daebak. What’s it called?”

Jiho and Seungyoon exchanged a grin. “‘I Am You, You Are Me’.”

Minho was silent for a minute as his face grew increasingly more expressive. “That’s creepy. Hyung, no, that’s so creepy. I can’t believe you would write a song about that. Fans already think you’re twins separated at birth.”

“No they don’t,” Seungyoon said, laughing at how ridiculous Minho was. “That’s a conspiracy theory your cooked brain came up with.” He poked Minho with his feet and Minho collapsed on top of Seungyoon’s legs and Jiho with a sigh.

“It’s cute in a way, but mostly that’s just gross. You really wrote a song about your boyfriend. You guys must really be in love.”

Seungyoon felt his stomach clench at the words and glanced at Jiho again, who looked the way Seungyoon felt. They’d never said the words before, but Seungyoon suspected he’d felt them for a while now. They’d been dating for over a year; maybe it was time to be brave. 

“Yeah,” Seungyoon said, a smile creeping over his face, matched by Jiho’s. “We really are, aren’t we?”

Jiho kissed him then, and Minho made a disgusted noise, but he didn’t get off them, and when they broke away he knelt just to flop on top of them, and Jiho laughed, and Seungyoon laughed, their limbs entangled, the three of them warm where they touched.

**Author's Note:**

> ive been screaming outta my ass over this for two months and now it's done i'm ready to lie down in the dirt and let my body return to the earth where it belongs. i'm still on [the twitter](http://twitter.com/skvllage) so come say hi


End file.
